Posts by Gino Sassani

Simon Baker is riding high these days. His hit series The Mentalist was the highest ranked new drama of the year when it first debuted. That accomplishment got the show paired with CSI in that enviable Thursday night time slot. I’m amazed when I hear folks tell me how the actor appeared to come out of nowhere. A few film roles and he’s Mr. Television. Well, count me in with the small group that isn’t so surprised and saw him coming as far away as 2001 with a sleeper CBS series called The Guardian.

Baker played Nick Fallin, a talented young lawyer who just got busted for cocaine. Nick won’t see the inside of prison, however. His father, Burton (Coleman) is the senior partner at one of Pittsburgh’s most influential corporate law firms. Instead of jail, Nick is given five years probation and ordered to serve 1500 hours of community service. His court ordered assignment is Legal Services of Pittsburgh, formally Children’s Legal Services. He’s placed under the charge of Alvin Masterson (Rosenberg), an idealist who set up the law clinic originally to speak for children who have no one else to do so. He’s resentful of Nick’s pampered lifestyle and at first wants to make the gig hard enough on him that he might ask to be assigned elsewhere. Eventually they warm to each other as Nick becomes more vested in the job than he thought he would be. Much of the show’s conflict is derived from Nick juggling these two worlds. He still has a duty as a shark attorney for his father’s firm, yet must find time to help these indigents and children who have come to the clinic for help.

Duckman began life as an underground comic created by Everett Peck. It gathered to itself quite a cult following, and like all such things caught the attention of Hollywood. The USA Network took a chance on the quirky property and cast Seinfeld’s Jason Alexander to voice the crude character. And so Duckman’s wife was killed, and he was forced to rent his own house from his sister-in-law, who was left the estate by Duckman’s wife. His life pretty much sucked. Not only was he renting in his own house, but he was also living with his overbearing sister-in-law and his grandma, who basically just sat around and farted all day long. Duckman considered himself an ace private detective and ran an agency with his partner, Cornfed. Cornfed was voiced by Gregg Berger and was a Jack Webb Sgt. Friday clone. He was the actual brains behind the partnership. Crimes either got solved because Cornfed solved them or Duckman literally stumbled into the answer. His conscience would be found in two talking teddy bears he kept at the office, Fluffy and Uranus. Like Kenny on South Park, the bears would often meet grisly demises, only to return again in the next episode as if nothing at all had happened. Women, particularly damsels in distress, were often depicted as large-breasted and somewhat dimwitted. Most of the humor was decidedly adult. It was not a cartoon intended for children.

The animation was farmed out to Asian companies and was often a hodgepodge of various styles. There was a determined effort to catch some of the 1940’s style in the backgrounds and props for the show. Characters were often a mix of some animal, known or unknown, and humans. Duckman himself was almost a stick figure. He had a pole for a body, a beak and his eyes existed in his glasses which could be moved in almost any way imaginable. The show aired between 1993 and 1997, never gaining a huge audience but keeping a somewhat cult following. Much of the music was provided by Frank Zappa, and the cartoon certainly followed his offbeat satirical bent. Zappa’s daughter Dweezil was a regular on the series. Zappa died before the show really got going, however, so he was never able to fully appreciate the run.

Ray Donovan (Schreiber) is a Boston native who moved his entire family including his two brothers out to L.A. There he built an empire by being very good at what he does. What he does is fix problems, particularly for big-name celebrities and the lawyers who coddle represent them. His father has spent 20 years in jail for a crime he might not have actually committed. But Ray hates his father enough to have set him up and sent him to jail. A pattern Ray has continued over four years of the show. Ray has a wife, Abby (Malcomson), whom he keeps at arm’s length of his dubious business dealings. He also has a son and daughter who are somewhat conflicted in their feelings for their father. You don't want to start here if you are just experiencing Ray Donovan for the first time. In fact, this year is one of the best in the show's 5-year run to date. You really want to get caught up so you can appreciate some emotional drama as Ray Donovan The Complete Fifth Season comes to DVD. You get all 12 episodes on four discs.

The entire style of storytelling has changed for this season. It's not a spoiler to reveal here that Abby dies of the cancer she discovers in the previous season. Not only isn't it a spoiler, but it becomes the very event that changes how the show is presented. Ray is living two lives now. In one life he is haunted by the memories and ghost of Abby. That story shows us crucial moments in those final months of Abby's life and allows her character to continue through the entire season even though she begins it already dead. Many of these moments are repeated, revealing slightly more of their meaning over the season. They are usually tied to events in the current time and most often associated with Ray's guilt and loneliness.

Lynda La Plante is quite a fixture in the British television landscape. She has been a television writer since the 1970's and has been producing her own creations since the 1990's. Her shows often feature a woman in some kind of authority position fighting the good fight in a law enforcement tradition that leans heavily in the male department. Likely American audiences know her best from her more recent Prime Suspect series which has enjoyed some success here in the States. It wasn't long before that show that she was writing and producing a series of television movies with the overall title of The Commander. The films ran from 2003 until about 2008 when the final film was released as a three-part show. Acorn has put together a 7 disc DVD collection of the show's entire run.

The only common thread in the series is the character of Commander Clare Blake played by British television icon Amanda Burton. The first film follows her promotion to the prestigious Murder Squad but she's met with immediate complications that have more to do with her own failures than working in a "man's world". A killer that she arrested many years ago has been released from prison. He claims he has been rehabilitated and has written a book about that experience. The profits will go to a victim's charity he has set up and he's asked Blake to write the book's forward. Unfortunately, she does much more than that. The two become romantically involved while he has become the suspect in a string of recent killings that could mean he has graduated from murderer to serial killer. The bad press and series of events cast a huge cloud over the newly minted commander and her work. And it's with that cloud that the series moves forward.

"Lion’s Guard, let's go!"

For many years The Lion King was the highest-grossing animated film of all time. It remains one of the most beloved films in history. It marked the last of the Disney classic animation triumphs. Combined with the Elton John and Tim Rice songs, it is one of those generational films. While there has never been a feature film follow-up at the box office, there have been a few attempts to keep the franchise alive, and why not? A direct- to-video film told the same story from the unique point of view of the popular characters Timon and Pumbaa. A full-fledged sequel appeared in another direct-to-video feature called The Lion King: Simba’s Pride. Now the baton is being passed to the next generation with a television series on the Disney Channel called The Lion Guard.