interlude-THE GREATEST TELEVISION SHOWS THAT NEVER WERE

About halfway through this ABC program, I had an epiphany. I realized two things:

A) There are not nearly enough hours in the day and

B) Television producers suck ass for greenlighting crap like Boston Commons and rejecting such gems as Wishman.

I also came to the conclusion that this "reading" thing I've been getting into is lame and a waste of time and I need to watch more TV. And also, television viewers in the Eighties never had it so good. And also, Scott Bakula made a lot of career missteps.

THE GREATEST TV SHOWS THAT NEVER WERE was a clip compendium from tv pilots that for some reason or another were never picked up by the networks. Most of them looked like they'd totally kick ass, and some I totally remember watching when they originally aired, because back then my taste wasn't nearly as discriminating. Case in Point: BATES MOTEL. Starring the strangely round-headed Bud Cort from HAROLD AND MAUDE, this 1987 creep-fest had mental patient Cort reopening the Bates Motel, given to him by fellow inmate Norman Bates. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Cort fixes the place right up with fountains and flowers and matching guest towels, and stuff happens and it's not at all scary. I totally watched this. Why, I don't remember. I think I may have thought Bud Cort was cute in a round-headed kind of way. And Jason Bateman was in it. GET IT!?!?! BATEMAN!??! Oh, and Lori Petty was in it too, young and innocent and not yet in POINT BREAK. And the redhead from HEAD OF THE CLASS was in it, and Dr. Hologram from Voyager. I know his name is Robert Picardo!!! I was just checking to see if you remembered.

Another one I totally remember watching was WISHMAN. Linda Hamilton stars as the wife of a scientist who steals a genetically created kid with big eyes and electric antenna on his head. And they go on the run from government people. As they all do. I would need to count on all my fingers and toes the number of shows involving people "on the run from government agents." THE PHOENIX was of course the best of the genre, followed closely by THE POWERS OF MATTHEW STARR, MISFITS OF SCIENCE, STARMAN, and THE A-TEAM.

One that totally should have been greenlighted was THE CHAMELEON starring Bobbie Phillips (Dr. Bambi Berenbaum from X-Files season three episode War of the Coprophages) where she plays a robot that can change her appearance to blend in with her surroundings. Apparently this takes place in a nudist colony because from the preview "blending in" requires a lot of removing of clothing. If crap like SHEENA and WHATEVER THE HELL IT WAS 2025 got greenlighted, this totally deserved to be more than a series of lame TV films.

My breath was literally taken away when they featured the pilot film GOOD AGAINST EVIL, which I own on DVD. Not on purpose, mind you; it was part of the GREATEST INVENTION SINCE TOILET PAPER (and those who know me know how much I love toilet paper so this really means something), Best Buy DVD two-packs called HORROR CLASSICS which supply the discerning viewer with up to 11 hours of movies for FIVE NINETY-NINE. You heard me: for less than a ticket to an afternoon show, you can have eight movies at your fingertips. Chances are they all suck ass, but you're not paying for the Hope Diamond, you're paying for Marie Osmond's entire QVC doll collection.

That's not a very good analogy. I got a 1020 on my SAT. I think that means I flunked analogies, but I got my name right.

Anyway, in GOOD AGAINST EVIL, hunky Soap Star Dack Rambo is in love with the chick who is destined to bear the Child of Satan. She of course doesn't realize what her destiny is so she just thinks she's "bad news" (Honey, "bad news" is when you love them and leave them, not when you love them and they are mysteriously run over by rolling logs out in the middle of a cornfield because Satan doesn't want his bride to be defiled) so she leaves Dack but he can't forget their undying love that grew out of an auto accident involving a parked car and about a week of eating picnics and posing for street artists, so he hooks up with an exorcist to chase after her. Presumably the show was to involve the two of them traveling cross country to battle satanic cats and exorcise the children of Dack's old girlfriends. At least this is what happened in the movie. Dack's old girlfriend is played by SEX AND THE CITY's Kim Cattrall in one of her first roles. She looks good as a brunette. Playing Satan's minion is Richard Lynch, a name you don't recognize but I swear if you saw him you'd be like, "HEY! Isn't he that guy that played Satan's minion in that movie *fill in the blank*?" He's totally satanic looking. The exorcist is played by real-life exorcist Dan O'Herlihy. Not really, but with a name like that, he should totally be a real-life exorcist.

Finally, a couple of quickies. The people who brought you BAYWATCH really wanted to bring you DAYTONA BEACH, a show about a cop/lifeguard/race car driver/priest/pizza delivery guy dating an air force pilot/wannabe astronaut. The astronaut chick was played by Alexandra Paul, the one chick on BAYWATCH who looked like she could actually save your life should you be unlucky enough to nearly drown on that particular beach. And Lee Majors was in it, I guess hoping to hit the same comeback jackpot won by David Hasselhoff.

GEEZ, KNIGHT RIDER vs THE FALL GUY? Ask me to gnaw off my own arm instead, why don't you?

And then there's poor Scott Bakula. He had two doosies. The first was I-MAN, where Scott plays a cab driver who smells space gas and is able to heal really fast, so he fights crime but still gets hurt but can heal really fast so he...um...doesn't scar as bad? According to IMDB, this was his first big role carrying a series. This totally reminds me of the greatest movie ever made, MODERN PROBLEMS starring Chevy Chase as a guy who gets dowsed by nuclear waste and gains telekinetic powers. Seriously, I saw that movie fifty bagillion times in the movie theater. And keep in mind I was ten when this came out, so that was quite a feat. And also I think the "theater" was actually the drive-in next to my house. My point is that some suffering relative had to take me and sit there with me through the fifty bagillion times. Also suffered through by a relative was ZAPPED, the greatest movie ever made by the then love of my life, Scott Baio. I remember my dad took me to see this at the drive-in and slept through the whole thing. It was a double feature with PARADISE starring Willie Ames and Pheobe Cates. This was totally a BLUE LAGOON rip-off, and also where I learned about sex. I'm kidding, I totally learned about sex from watching monkeys at the zoo. Wait, that was Homer Simpson.

Anyway, Scott Bakula starred in the small screen adaption of GUNG HO before landing the lead in THE INFILTRATOR, where he's a crazy scientist guy who makes a teleporter and teleports himself right into the space probe in the sexy scientist's office next door. So then when he gets mad he totally transforms into a super robot. And stuff happens.

There were more goodies. The STAR TREK spinoff ASSIGNMENT: EARTH looked promising, although it appears this is just considered episode 55 of the series. And then there was THE PEOPLE, about space alien Amish people, which was first season X-files episode Gender Bender, featuring an appearance by actor Nic Lea before he was cast as recurring character Kyrchek.

Not that you wanted to know that.

But see, the point of all of this is that if only they'd do away with the makeover shows and the LOOK, HONEY, I SWAPPED OUT THE KIDS shows, there would be way more scripted shit for me to watch and memorize minutia from. And really, that's what life is all about, isn't it?

That question's rhetorical, by the way.

PS I totally forgot to mention the DAREDEVIL TV show starring SOLID GOLD host Rex Smith. Thank God that failed, or else Ben Affleck would have had something to live up to. By the way, the black Solid Gold dancer with the hair was Darcel. She was in XANADU, in the musical bit with The Tubes.

Not that you wanted to know that.