Vinyl, "Pilot"

One of the many great skills of director Martin Scorsese is his unnaturally gifted ear for music, often popular or classic rock ‘n’ roll that fits the scene with a sublime perfection. There couldn’t be a better candidate to tackle the music biz, especially that of the era which birthed both his career and so many of his scoring choices, the era which Vinyl covers. And as director of last night’s premiere, his musical ear is there in spades, as is his skillful technical direction maybe a little less so. As for his knack for highlighting the character of immoral people in an environment where morals are few? That’s not clear, yet, though the immorality is front and center: this is a world of coked-up, backstabbing sex fiends, and it almost plays those qualities as positives.

Our guide through this world is Richie Finestra (Bobby Cannavale), the founder and head of the New York City-based record label American Century. Once a titan of the industry, the label has fallen on hard times by the series date of 1973, and is about to be sold to a German conglomerate. The pilot mostly follows Richie as he gets his house in order before the sale, amidst the beginning of New York’s punk rock scene, as well as hinting at a few other musical movements that would arise from the same time and place.

The episode is two hours long and still feels overstuffed. Richie’s workday entails quite a lot, meeting so many characters in so many places and seemingly eating up half the running time or more. There are also plenty beginnings of subplots, such as a relatively underused Olivia Wilde as Richie’s bored and melancholy wife he has little time for, and a great Juno Temple playing a label secretary determined to sign a wild young punk rocker (James Jagger, son of co-creator and executive producer Mick) and move up in the world. These smaller story threads are more interesting than the stuff following Richie. Affable and capable as Cannavale is, his demeanor is that of a hardened guy who's unfazed by any of the excesses around him. As high-energy and flashy as the show is, his disinterest is frankly a bit of a buzzkill. Also better are the flashbacks to his earliest job in the business, where his management of a blues artist (Ato Essandoh) takes a tragic turn. Oh, and there are also outside-of-time musical numbers that appear as interludes.

But, nostalgia is more the order of the day, and not just the music. The scuzzy New York Scorsese depicted as an urban hell in Taxi Driver is shown longingly here. With few exceptions, the consumption of piles and piles of drugs are depicted as a pretty good time. The industry characters Richie encounters are almost like parodies of sleazy exec archetypes played to the absolute hilt. It’s generally a lively, often funny time, and it’s kind of fun seeing real rock icons as bit players. But about three-quarters in, the pilot takes a sharp turn into GoodFellas territory, such a rough fit that the whole show nearly crosses the line from somewhat lightweight musical ear candy to kitschy popcorn cheese.

The small tad of depth beyond the surface sleaze comes at the very beginning, in the opening moment of the great sequence that bookends the whole thing. Here, a despondent Richie pathetically snorts cocaine and seems to be hit with the reality that he’s clinging to a part of his life that’s passed, that it’s time to move on. The events of the episode leading to this point reveal this is not exactly what's going on, but still, kind of an ironic note to kick off a project so dripping with nostalgia.

It’s pretty fleeting, as he happens upon a rowdy New York Dolls show that literally brings the house down. It’s a fantastically staged sequence, with the expert editing and variation of camera techniques Scorsese employs to heighten the state. It all leads to a conclusion that is at once a corny piece of rock ‘n’ roll movie embellishment, and absolutely perfect and fitting after the nearly two hours that preceded it. Best of all, it finally loosens Richie up a bit. It remains to be seen if he or his fellow travelers turn out to be strong characters under those drug-fueled 70s shells, but the prospect of more thrilling sequences like that is enough to give this show a chance.