Release Date: TBA
The opening night film of the festival, The TV Set, is a satirical look at the world of television production from the mewling and puking of the show concept, through the pilot taping, straight on to the network picking it up for the new Fall line up. It’s a tale of butting heads — creativity vs. marketability — offered from Jake Kasdan, the director of Orange County.
Mike (David Duchovny) struggles with creating the pilot for his TV show, a heartfelt dramatic comedy about a young man who comes back to his home town after his brother commits suicide. His only real obstacle is Lenny (Sigourney Weaver), the top brass at the network who strangles all with her smile and who double talks Mike out of most of his best ideas. She loves everything about the show, except the title, Mike's choice for the lead role and, unsurprisingly, the main impetus and concept of the entire project.
The rest of the movie is a excellent seat on a train wreck that turns a genuine story into one that will sell to the masses. By the end of it all, a personal tale becomes one littered with comically animated dialogue, delivery, and fart jokes thrown in for good measure. After all, Mike will have to keep up with the network’s top show, Slut Wars, right?
Thrown in the mix are Zach (Fran Kanz), a terrible actor the network loves, and Laurel (Lindsay Sloane), a talented presence who wants nothing to do with Zach’s pathetic romantic advances. Gratifyingly, no one seems to like anyone else in this movie. Even Richard (Ioan Gruffudd), a new executive at the network, can’t seem to help Mike and his original vision get off the ground.
You don’t have to be familiar with Jake Kasdan’s track record — especially Freaks and Geeks — to understand that this movie is a personal one. It’s a story that defeats every aspiring writer who sees it, taking them from the high of one day seeing their name in lights to the crude reality that finding success might not be worth the trouble.
For a audience not salivating to sell scripts for a living, it’s a fun movie with some moments that prove difficult to watch. Duchovny’s Mike is a great sympathetic character who stands powerless against the corporate steamroller of audience polling. On top of his neutered sense of worth within the process, Mike and his wife (Justine Bateman) have another child on the way.
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