connections<\/a>. Yes, it’s about a rich white dude trying to make a difference – but the shaded characterisations and intelligent writing made it much more interesting.<\/p>\n… How about: Billionaire Teddy Rist, unable to dull the grief over his son’s death, tries to fill the void inside him by making the world a better place – not by using his considerable connections or his bottomless cheque book – but with only his guile, charm and heart<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Like I said: I really liked the script. I wanted to see the pilot.<\/p>\n
And when I saw the pilot the other week… I thought I’d give it just one more ep.<\/p>\n
And when I saw the second ep, whatever concerns I had with the show found a voice: Love the concept. Hate the execution.<\/i><\/p>\n
The acting’s fab. The writing’s sharp (at least in the pilot). The production values are high.<\/p>\n
But the whole “This week we’re in exotic, colourful, beautiful [INSERT FOREIGN LAND]” vibe really grates. It’s a slur to – my perceived – social heart of the series.<\/p>\n
In the second ep, as Rist was horrified by the deplorable conditions of a Burmese mining camp in the second ep, I couldn’t help thinking, Gee, I wonder if the show will turn its attention to post-Katrina New Orleans or Baltimore’s projects<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Nah-ah.<\/p>\n
I know it’s a fantasy. I know it’s on free-to-air NBC rather than cable. I guess if I want a show to fix the world in 45 minutes each week, I want it to fix a fictionalised, country-names-changed-to-protect-the-innocent kind of world. Anything else feels cheap and shallow and faintly insulting.<\/p>\n
It’s probably just me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two things struck me when I saw the title of this show last year: 1. the title, from a country who changed the title of the first Harry Potter instalment on the off-chance audience members didn’t know what ‘dictionary’ meant; and 2. the creator\/writer\/producer, Tom Fontana. If neither of the above points compel you to … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “Box Watch: The Philanthropist”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[80,78],"class_list":["post-452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scriptwriting","category-television","tag-the-philanthropist","tag-tom-fontana"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4476,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452\/revisions\/4476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}