2/5 Bland, with script that contradicts its thesis
  by Douglas B. Moran (Palo Alto, CA USA)
As other reviews have pointed out, not only is there nothing here that hasn't appeared in hundreds of similar takes on making movies/TV, there is nothing fresh nor involving.

If you think about what is happening--rather than simply accept the characters' pronouncements--the writer Mike Klein (Duchovny) comes off much worse than intended, and the executives much better. A movie is a real mess when what appears on the screen contradicts its intended message.

-- Examples/details --

Contrary to the pronouncements that the show is high quality, the 2.5 scenes we see indicate it is bad. One scene is wacky, one is overly sentimental, and the half is mundane exposition. Furthermore, it is characterized as a (derivative) mix of "Northern Exposure", "Ed" and "Seinfeld". This made it impossible for me to identify with writer Klein.

The movie's script presents the executives as interfering with the "creative vision" by asking the legitimate question of why a suicide, rather than an ordinary death, needs to a key part of the show and of the motivation for the show's lead. Klein is repeatedly unable to give even the slightest explanation. Klein comes off as arbitrary, stubborn, and indulging himself (Klein's brother was a suicide), whereas the executives come off as worrying about the show itself.

The script intends to present the selection of the actors as interference by the executives, but what you see is them picking ones who gave the far better auditions. Klein wants a friend for the male lead, but the scene used in the audition (wacky material) is inappropriate for the friend's (flat) style, and even then he appears amateurish. I was left wondering if the friend was anything more than a crony. And with what follows, it is implausible that Zack, the actor chosen, could have been a legitimate finalist. Instead, Klein appears to have been trying to manipulate the executives into choosing his friend, but wound up sabotaging his own show.

The audition for the female lead produced the one memorable line "I think that Jessie has fake breasts, and I believe that over the life of the series the audience can feel that." It comes across as just a crass way for the executive (Weaver) to say "We're going with talent, rather than looks." If Jessie had given the better audition, this line could have had very different meaning. So what is wrong with the executives picking the actress who, although not statuesque, was still a beauty and was able to project a winsome personality?

On focus groups, the script undercuts itself by its wildly implausible participants: They are miles away from being members of the demographics that the real-life networks rabidly pursue. Consequently, the movie has no credibility at the end when it presents the wildly transformed TV show.

The exec played by Ioan Gruffudd is a role so small in both screen time and impact on the story, I had to wonder why it was there at all. If I had come cold to the movie, I would have suspected that his role had been intended to be the lead (the outsider/new arrival is a standard dramatic device) with writer Klein as one of the "villains", but that when Duchovny signed on as Klein, the script was hastily rewritten to make him the lead. A movie is a real mess when one incorrectly suspects such butchery.

Note that I am NOT saying that real-life executives haven't butchered good shows. Rather, in this movie, the screenwriter Kasdan, through the character Klein, falsely equates whatever the "artist" _wants_ to do with being _good_ art.

4/5 DVD "TV Set"
  by MV Gurl
Item arrived on time. In just okay shape, but was advertised as used. I've purchased other used items that were in better shape, but it was okay. Story pretty silly.

3/5 The TV Set
  by Southern Belle (Omaha, NE USA)
This movie is watchable only because of David Duchovny. The plot is satirical but I found it more sad than funny. The acting was good, especially the young man who was the "star" of the projected TV sitcom. Sigourney Weaver is always excellent no matter what kind of part she plays. The actress who played David Duchovny's character's wife was especially physically unattractive. But, of course, I think the only women who match him in looks are Tea Leoni and Gillian Anderson.

2/5 Axe grinding makes for bad viewing
  by Genevieve Hayes (Australia)
Mike Klein's (David Duchovny) television pilot has been given the green light for production. However, the "few small changes" he has to make in order to keep the network executives happy, turn out to be bigger than he first anticipated. This film follows the making of Klein's pilot.

There is nothing worse than a movie written by someone with an axe to grind and that is just how "The TV Set" comes across. "The TV Set" is a relatively low-budget independent movie written by someone (Jake Kasdan) who obviously bears a grudge against the Hollywood establishment and against the television networks in general. The argument Kasdan puts forward in this film is that Hollywood is populated by people so dumb that they wouldn't know quality entertainment if it bit them on the rear and who feel the need to bring everything down to their level. This may be true, but if you're going to put forward an argument like this, then you have to back it with a quality film, which Kasdan doesn't. Throughout this film, I felt that Kasdan was trying to hit back at Hollywood for not recognizing his own work as being high quality, but it never once occurs to him that perhaps Hollywood doesn't see him as great because he isn't.

"The TV Set" is a poorly written and unfunny "comedy" that is based on the faulty premise that a Hollywood network actually cares what a single previously unheard of writer thinks. There are a lot of ideas in this film that could have worked very well, given the right writer, but Kasdan isn't that writer. None of the ideas are taken far enough. The basic premise of this film is that the trashier Klein's pilot becomes, the more popular it gets, but the pilot doesn't actually become all that trashy, by current TV standards, it just becomes bad. Similarly, one sub-plot involving Ioan Gruffudd has Gruffudd's character starting to wonder whether it would be better to give the people good TV rather than trash, but that plot line never seems to go anywhere. The only really good thing about this film is Seth Green's cameo, right at the end of the film (in the credits), but two minutes of Seth Green is not enough to justify sitting through the 85 minutes that precede it.


4/5 Too Close For Comfort
  by L. T. Ellis
Having worked in network television production at two separate studios, I have to say that The TV Set is far too close to reality to be at all comfortable. From the way a show is cast to the way it is shot to the way it is promoted, I am surprised that this got produced, let alone aired.

No, it is not Network, but Paddy Chayefsky is no longer with us either. From the sleazy to the smarmy, from the desperate to the despicable, from the manic to the mediocre, this shows them all in a quick slice of Hollywood. The unending compromises and dilutions that happen to produce the filler for television advertising is what you've got right here.