Profit – The Complete Series

 

Picture: C     Sound: B-     Extras: C+     Episodes: B-

 

 

The boldest show Stephen J. Cannell has produced to date is Profit, a series about a psychopathic businessman (Adrian Pasdar) who is involved in incest, manipulation, sleeps in a box, has killed his father and is otherwise very screwed up.  It only became greenlighted because it was so well written by creator/writers David Greenwalt and John McNamara, but the show was not a hit.  Now a cult item, Anchor Bay has issued the series that was not on long enough to become as controversial as it should have back in 1996.

 

The Fox Network did not even finish broadcasting the shows that were shot, so they have been collected here in a three DVD set.  At first, the show was shocking, especially the incest angle, but that gets somewhat trivialized by being ignored as the show goes on and the series essentially becomes Dynasty or even Melrose Place crossing the line like nothing that broadcast TV ever offered before.  Of course, this was from “The 4^th Network”, but it happened.  The series grind trivializes the edges, then Jim Profit himself becomes the moral center of the piece in ways that begin to strain belief.  Unfortunately, The Silence Of The Lambs (1991) was there first and made this show possible, but this show is superior to Mary Herron’s American Psycho (2000, both reviewed elsewhere on this site), which owes much of its success to this series.

 

The episodes are:

 

1)     Pilot telefilm*

2)     Hero

3)     Sykes

4)     Healing*

5)     Cupid

6)     Chinese Box*

7)     Security

8)     Forgiveness

 

 

The 1.33 X 1 image is hazier than expected for whatever reason, but is color consistent and come from clean prints otherwise.  Part of the problem might be that the effects were done on professional NTSC video and any film shooting suffers as a result from the final master.  Should they redo the visual effects when HD rolls around?  Purists will say no and many series from the time are facing the same dilemma.  That is why fans will want these copies no matter what.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is much better, with Pro Logic surrounds and good sound design.

 

Extras include commentary tracks on episodes marked above with an * afterwards by Pasdar, Greenwalt and McNamara, plus a new featurette about the show running over an hour, with all new interviews by those on the commentaries, plus other co-stars and Cannell himself.  I give the show credit for taking a unique look at Capitalism without either fully embracing or totally rejecting it and its corporate culture, but I wish the show could have continued to be bold and land up as more than just a darker than usual nighttime soap opera.  It is still an impressive show despite its many problems and the best work of just about all involved.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo