It was a gamble, but when it comes to the super-serious art of television watching, a gamble is sometimes necessary. Now, in retrospect, it wasn't a gamble at all. 'The Adventures of Brisco County jr' is definitely good. Yes, that's a generalisation, and one made after watching only the pilot episode, but it is in all likelihood an accurate one. The writing has that absurdist touch that some of the best cross-genre shows reach for, Bruce Campbell is wonderful in his own bashful way, and there's a horse called Comet! Yes, this show can go places, and doesn't care about stealing names from Superman comics. (See: Comet the Super Horse.)
How many movie serial inspired comedic westerns with science fiction overtones are there? Is there anything else to get close to 'Brisco County'? It may be that only 'Back to the Future III' is in the same ballpark, if we can lump movies and television shows in together. As the season progresses, it will be interesting to see if it matches up to the potential of the pilot, which led off the show's single season in 1993-1994.
That was a crazy season for television, that year of 1993-1994: 'Lois and Clark' began, and was subsequently re-tooled into supreme blandness in succeeding years; 'Moon Over Miami' debuted and died in ten episodes flat with three left unaired; 'Brisco County jr' debuted and died of minute ratings; 'Frasier' had its first and debateable best year, and 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' had its final year. That is a momentous sequence of events for me, personally, and marks the biggest set of coincident misjudgements to land in television land that I can remember. What would have occurred a year earlier or a year later? We'll never know.
The pilot for 'Brisco County jr' revolves around Bruce Campbell's titular turn as the bounty hunter who is hired to track down the outlaw John Bly and his gang, who escaped from his father's custody and killed him in retribution. It's not about revenge, though. It's far far lighter. It's about getting the job done, and utilizing and subverting every Western trope you can find in the process, as well as incorporating science fiction elements via a mysterious orb found in a mine. Oh, and there are jokes. Lots and lots of jokes.
To be honest, there was a secret secondary motivation reason for buying 'Brisco County jr', in addition to the positive ravings you can find all over the Internet, and that is the recurring presence of John Astin - Gomez Addams himself - as eccentric inventor Professor Albert Wickwire. You can't ignore the Astin when he appears in curiously unknown television shows, you just can't, especially when his character directly inspires the first rocket railway car to be seen in the longest time. Has there been one since 'The Great Race' or Wile E Coyote?
Great pilot, now let's see what happens. This is no longer a gamble.
O.
Retrospective Note: Ramblings on the final episode can be found at http://mightyclomp.blogspot.com/2015/11/television-television-adventures-of.html
No comments:
Post a Comment