Fabulous TV flops now out on DVD
Holy Lord, there’s NOTHING on TV this summer. Once upon a time that was a real bummer. Like, you had to go outside and stuff.
Now, thanks to DVDs, you never have to leave your La-Z-Boy again. Avoid the great outdoors by enjoying some fabulous TV flops in special collector’s edition sets. All without commercials!
These series never really “opened.” Too odd or unusual for the masses, they’re like little independent films. Some only aired two or three times before being cancelled. None produced more than 17 episodes:
PROFIT
So bizarre, creepy and ahead of its time it should have been an HBO show. Instead it somehow snuck on the air while the Fox censors were asleep for a few weeks in April, 1996.
Adrian Pasdar stars as Jim Profit, the ultimate, back-stabbing, corporate weasel, a totally amoral dude who worms his way up the ladder at fictional Gracen & Gracen.
Bad enough that he is constantly plotting against co-workers on his home computer. He also has an incestuous relationship with his white trash stepmother who is constantly blackmailing him. (She knows he once set fire to his dad).
The payoff comes at the end of the two-hour movie debut. Profit is shown curling up nude inside a cardboard box and going to sleep. That’s how he was raised, nude in a box, with only a peep hole to watch his one and only window on the outside world — television. No wonder he’s so screwed up!
Said the New York Daily News at the time: “May well be the most unremittingly evil character ever to serve as the protagonist and principal voice of a network TV series.”
Four episodes that never aired are included on the set. Time has blunted some of the shock (HBO and FX series such as Six Feet Under and Nip/Tuck have gone further) and the computer graphics look quaint today, but Profit is still worth a look just to see how far TV once strayed on the dark side. Among the producers — John MacNamara, who just flamed out with a future addition to this list: ABC’s stylish and unjustly abandoned Tim Daly caper Eyes.
UNDECLARED
This 2001 followup to another one-year-wonder, Freaks And Geeks — stars Montreal-native Jay Baruchel (teamed with Don Johnson in the new WB series Just Legal) as a dorky college freshman. The DVD set includes a 17th, never-before-seen episode, bloopers and outtakes plus tons of commentary from brilliant showrunner Judd Apatow.
KEEN EDDIE
Before she was getting screwed over by Jude Law, Sienna Miller co-starred (opposite Boston Legal’s Mark Valley) in this smash-and-grab 2003 detective series set and shot in London. There is nothing this bratty, original or stylish on TV this fall. All 13 episodes, but no commentary or other extras. Cheapskates!
GOD, THE DEVIL AND BOB
Another 13-episode wonder, with James Garner as the voice of God (who looks just like Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead) in this wry, animated gem from Matthew Carlson (About A Boy, Malcolm In The Middle). Alan Cumming voices the Devil (natch) with French Stewart as Bob (natch again). Only three episodes aired on NBC in 2000. Why, God, why?
WONDERFALLS
There is nobody on TV this fall as adorable as Montreal native Caroline Dhavernas. Here she’s Jaye, a screwed up clerk who keeps hearing voices from trinkets in her Niagara Falls souvenir shop. Besides the 13 episodes (Fox only showed four before cancelling this in 2004), this collection is loaded with commentary, a music video and enough other extras to keep fans panting for a still hoped-for big screen sequel.
THE TICK
Wicked men, beware! Patrick Warburton is the big blue bug of justice in this loopy, laugh-out-loud superhero sendup from 2001. Eight precious episodes. Four crime fighters. One Batmanuel (Nestor Carbonell). Worth it just for the “Death Of The Immortal” episode.
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