THE SKED 2013 UPFRONTS: FOX Trailer – “Rake”

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FOX’s most highly-touted drama pilot the entire development season was RAKE, which is indeed on the air.  The price of scoring Greg Kinnear as a lead (much as it had been last year with Kevin Bacon) is that he would only commit to a limited number of episodes, so the show will air on Thursdays at 9PM between the two halves of Glee‘s season.  It’s getting the network’s American Idol lead-in, and while that’s not the prize that it used to be, it’s still the best launching pad FOX has.  Here’s the trailer.

It’s clear that Rake is an out-and-out star vehicle for Greg Kinnear, and that sets up a very interesting Thursday match-up between Kinnear on FOX and the Sean Hayes/Michael J. Fox duo on NBC.  The show seems considerably lighter in tone that the buzz on it and early comparisons to House had suggested–Kinnear’s brilliant but self-destructive lawyer is a gambling addict in love with a hooker, but he’s got a sense of humor about it all, and the pilot’s crime-of-the-week (Denis O’Hare as an accused cannibal) seems tongue-in-cheek.  The trailer doesn’t suggest much of a serialized element, and for an essentially procedural series, the limited number of episodes has little meaning.  While he show appears to be pretty weightless, it’s a solidly appealing role for Kinnear, and there’s no reason to think he won’t bring in a fair amount of audience.   Even if it’s not the gritty cable-level  “event” show some were expecting, it could work.