|
Profit- Sometimes The Rumors Are True |
|
Wednesday, 20 September 2006 |
By D. W. O'Dell
 Sometimes, occasionally, rumors are true. I don’t mean headlines in the tabloids; those are always wrong (it never ceases to amaze me how often they incorrectly predict the end of the world and yet remain in business). But sometimes word of mouth is the best indication that a movie or TV show is worthwhile.
For several years I heard rumors about a legendary TV series that was the quintessential “too good for television” show. A show so intelligent, so well made, that it was a miracle it ever got made in the first place. And the fact it was cancelled after only 4 episodes just proved how good it was.
So when the series Profit became available on DVD I put it on my Netflix queue and waited...for over two months. But the wait was worth it, and after seeing the show in its entirety I rushed out and bought my own copy.
In case you are unfamiliar with the show, Profit was an early (1996) attempt to create a show around an anti-hero, much like the later The Sopranos or, to a less murderous extent, Dr. Gregory House. The protagonist of the series was Jim Profit, a junior VP at an international conglomerate called Gracen and Gracen. What made Jim Profit different from any previous TV hero was the fact that he was a cold blooded sociopath. In fact, in the pilot episode he even murders his father (and when he wipes away a single tear afterwards, he looks at the drop on his hand as if to ask, “Why is water leaking from my eye?”).
His main antagonist, the company’s security chief, incorrectly refers to him as a psychopath. A psychopath enjoys being evil; a sociopath doesn’t recognize concepts like “evil” and “good.” He has goals, and any interference with achieving those goals will be eliminated. When Profit is up against Russian mobsters and corporate bosses willing to sell tainted baby food, his lack of malice becomes benign by comparison.
He never acts out of anger; when he is double crossed by a new employee his reaction is, “I underestimated him. I won’t do that again.” He never seeks vengeance (“Revenge is for the weak," he instructs his assistant). At one point he gets his rival committed to a mental hospital, but then he releases her, philosophically commenting that keeping her there would have made his life simpler, but that life is about struggle. And he is always unfailingly polite, even when people are calling him a psychopath.
The source of Profit’s mental state? When he was a child his father raised him by putting him in a cardboard box (manufactured by Gracen & Gracen) with a hole cut out so he could watch television. “Can you imagine a child raised by television?” asks someone in the pilot. As a corporate VP he has a luxury apartment, but he continues to sleep naked in a cardboard box within a secret room behind a bookcase. The shot of Profit, curled up naked in his cardboard box, is one of the great iconic images in the history of television.
Profit was created by David Greenwalt (who later co-created Angel and Miracles) and John McNamara (who subsequently worked on Brisco County Jr., Lois and Clark, and created the underrated series Eyes). In the commentary tracks they describe the difficulty they had pitching a show about an anti-hero in the early 1990’s - they were asked to physically leave the CBS building when they got to the part where Profit open-mouth kissed his step-mother. But they somehow got super producer Stephen J. Cannell behind them, and they managed to sell the idea to the edgy FOX network.
Critical praise was universal, but the ratings were abysmal even by FOX’s standards at the time. After four episodes FOX pulled the plug. But now, after ten years, all eight episodes (seven episodes plus the two hour pilot), both aired and unaired, are available on DVD, with commentary tracks on several episodes and a one hour documentary about the show.
The commentaries do tend to be a little overly self-congratulatory. The cast is good but not that good, except for star Adrian Pasdar, who hits every note just right. And the low budget shooting in Vancouver does tend to show through. But the character is a breakthrough in the history of TV--a hero without a conscience. The scripts are generally well-plotted and the character development over the few episodes that were produced is expertly done.
The great thing about DVDs is that small blips on the TV radar like Profit can find an audience and be preserved for posterity. In the commentaries Greenwalt and McNamara seem to be fishing for someone to commission a new version of Profit. I hope that doesn’t succeed, because the DVD set of Profit features as perfect a television show as has ever been produced by a network. Why mess with perfection? |
