Century City



Century City is a mid-season replacement airing on CBS Tuesday nights. It's just a completely standard lawyer show in futuristic drag. It's supposed to be set in 2030, so there's all kinds of high-tech office equipment, like hologram displays and the like. The two cases we see dealt with in the pilot have to do with advanced cloning and age-retardant drugs. Yet the characters attitudes towards these issues are completely 2004. That may make sense in George Bush's America, but it doesn't really reflect the way things really work. Things that were controversial or even illegal just years ago, like in vitro fertilization or mixed-race marriages, are now widely accepted. In Century City it's like nothing has changed in the intervening 25 years from now to when the show is set except the technology, and that makes the show hard to swallow. Also, the age-retardant story line ends with a 70 year old man hip hop dancing. I guess in the future old people acting like young people is still funny.


You can tell it's the future by the faux-Thai interior decorating.

I suspect Century City is doomed to be pulled after a few episodes have aired. The kind of people who normally watch lawyers shows, the comfort food of network TV, are going to be turned off by the gadgets and any mention of anything futuristic. People wanting science fiction will soon realize Century City isn't it.

Posted: Sun - March 21, 2004 at      

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