By Robert Bianco, USA TODAY
If credibility strikes you as unnecessary, Necessary Roughness may just work for you.
By Quantrell D. Colbert, USA Network
Dani (Callie Thorne) kicks out her cheating husband, she meets football trainer Matthew (Marc Blucas, far left), who helps her land a job counseling one of the players.
By Quantrell D. Colbert, USA Network
Dani (Callie Thorne) kicks out her cheating husband, she meets football trainer Matthew (Marc Blucas, far left), who helps her land a job counseling one of the players.
Heaven knows the star, Callie Thorne, is an appealing performer, even when the performance is, by script necessity, far less complex than the one she has given on Rescue Me. And after all, most USA shows require a similar willingness to check logic and any longing for verisimilitude at the door. The network's shows exist to repress thought, not provoke it.
Still, in the better examples of the oeuvre, such as Covert Affairs or White Collar, it's possible to believe in the relationships among the characters even if you don't quite buy the situations they get themselves into.
The problem with Roughness is that the characters and their interactions ring totally, ridiculously false ? which is kind of funny, because unlike those other shows, this one was inspired by a true story.
Clearly, it was not inspired enough.
There's nothing wrong with the premise (which at least gives it a leg up on USA's last debut, Suits). Thorne stars as Dr. Dani Santino, a Long Island psychotherapist whose marriage crumbles when she catches her husband cheating. ("Next time you screw someone in the guest bedroom, just remember: I do box pleats, not hospital corners.")
Necessary Roughness
USA, Wednesday, 10 ET/PT
* * out of four
No doubt like everyone you've ever known in a similar situation, Dr. Dani takes her first post-breakup trip to a bar and lands herself a handsome new boyfriend (Buffy's Marc Blucas), a trainer for a pro football team.
Even better, he falls so head over heels for her, he gets her a job counseling the team's most troubled star (Mehcad Brooks).
The player blusters, she stands up to him, tears are shed, they bond. And there's not a moment in the process that rings true, from the pat problems to the even more pat resolutions ? a complaint that applies equally well to Dani's battles with her stock-issue teenage daughter.
You can't expect a documentary approach from a USA series, but you should be able to expect at least one moment that doesn't feel as if it came straight out of another USA series.
Like most USA shows, Necessary Roughness is nice to look at, and while no one in it particularly shines, no one has to walk away embarrassed. But is "not awful" really the best we should be able to hope for?
Surely it's not necessary to answer.
Jessica Biel Amanda Peet Thandie Newton Tessie Santiago Katharine McPhee
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