Resurrection on ABC

This show is premiering this Sunday, and I'm having a really hard time with it. It's some kind of fantasy drama, with the central premise that people are coming back to life unchanged in age from when they died, returning to a particular town in Missouri. I'm guessing it's maybe a distant cousin of "Lost", where what they first tell you is only the tip of the iceberg, and it will develop into zombies or something strange as they tell the story.

I guess it's how they're promoting it that I find difficult. I don't know anyone who doesn't feel a lingering sorrow over the loss of one or more people important to them. For me, it's my father. It's been 15 years and a little, and there's still not a day when I don't wish I could pick up the phone and ask his advice on something, or give him a hug while I laugh at one of his jokes. He was so wise and we loved each other very much.

So, the commercial has a dad answering the door, and a cop is there, who asks if they know a person named whatever. And the dad says, "That was my son. He drowned 30 years ago when he was 8." And a healthy 8 year old comes running past the cop, up the stairs, and hugs the man's legs while shouting "Dad!" The look on his face is agonizing. And then they focus on the mother, who's deeper into the house, but sees the child and the same agonized expression comes into her eyes.

Am I the only person who finds this a cruel premise and questionable marketing campaign?

I have to admit, there were 2 series about the dead I watched closely; one was called "Dead Like Me", where the girl was killed by a toilet seat falling from a disintegrating Skylab, and became an earthbound soul guide. It was really well written, morbidly funny, and worth the time; think it ran 3 seasons, and had a great cast. The other was an HBO series called "Six Feet Under" which was mostly a family drama about undertakers, but did feature the patriarch and some of the dead as ghosts. Also very well written, I thought I would not watch this either but got caught up in the writing and watched throughout its run; another terrific cast.

I can't/don't watch slasher/horror/scary movies. Too many nightmares from the few I've seen. So maybe it's just me. But I'd be interested in other people's thoughts.

Quote: beachbumbabs

Am I the only person who finds this a cruel premise and questionable marketing campaign?

"The Body" episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer aired on February 27, 2001. Many people were shocked to have such a personal angst filled existential show suddenly appear in an otherwise light fantasy television show. Joss Whedon decided to write some painful personal experiences into his tv show. Some critics found some of the story elements jarring.


The last TV show with a similar theme aired in Europe for only 8 episodes


I suspect that the ABC television show will become (like Lost) more and more of a mystery as it develops. It is difficult to sustain sadness and loss week after week.

Quote: beachbumbabs

Am I the only person who finds this a cruel premise and questionable marketing campaign?

No, but I'm sure you are aware that Hollywood knows no bounds on decency or morality as long as money is involved. Somebody thinks they can make money with a show about dead people. Well, I think that Beetlejuice movie did okay financially with their Manual for the Newly Dead and Close Encounters had some lost aviators returning at the same age at which they disappeared but I think this show about dead people returning will morph into some sort of fraudulent scheme to collect an inheritance or something.

People who watch such TV shows tend to need mind numbing entertainment ... with everything out there now being about Walking Dead Vampires, Hollywood sees no problem with a morbid focus on the dead and dying. After all, isn't everyone losing their health insurance? Aren't nursing homes full of victims? So Hollywood opts to go for what is currently in style.

The Body episode was a treatment of the actual death in the family and was stripped of all back ground music.

Its similar to some talk show of long ago that suddenly produced a show on sexual abuse in white, middle class suburbia rather than in more extreme sociological circumstances.

Or shows that suddenly dealt with bondage amongst the middle class. Or spousal abuse when the victim is herself a lawyer.

All are reminiscent of the old GE Theater when it broadcast its first half hour show without an audio track at all. No dialog. No music.

All of these things have had emotional impact but have largely been forced through by the "show runner" in charge of the show. It is perhaps the reversal of the "Jumped the Shark" phrase. Or perhaps its a "Theme Suspended for one episode" phenomenon.

I remember the print equivalent during the international press hysteria involving the JonBenet Ramsey murder. The only outlet available to the besieged Ramseys, then the most hated couple in America, was The Value Added Journal an industry rag for value added retailers who bought computer hardware and software and sold the combination as a turn key product for more than the cost of the two components.

I also remember the McMartin Day Care hysteria when nationwide there was a universal journalistic acceptance of the most irrational and illogical goings on in a variety of child care centers with no dissenting voices. When the conventional wisdom is being cramned down everyone's throat the sudden appearance of a lone voice in the wilderness saying "The accuser is a mentally disturbed alcoholic who accused the teacher, the Mayor and the Pope" has an impact all its own.

When the Strathclyde Constabulary turned on DC Shirley Mckie inflicting everything from pre-dawn humiliating raids to campaigns of lies about non existent love affairs and sexual escapades at a murder scene she was driven not just to the brink of poverty but to, and beyond, the brink of madness. Five government finger print experts all testifying her print was on a murder scene door jam, but the suddenly that lone voice in the wilderness appears: the entire fingerprint expert community in the USA all said it is clearly not her fingerprint at all and each and everyone of those experts are lying and knows they are lying.

The Buffy Episode gains much of its strength from being such a radical departure from that which is expected. It serves the function of the far-off bugle call that signals the arrival of the cavalry. It gives us hope that shows about vapid high school twits can actually have some impact.

Quote: Fleastiff

The Buffy Episode gains much of its strength from being such a radical departure from that which is expected. It serves the function of the far-off bugle call that signals the arrival of the cavalry. It gives us hope that shows about vapid high school twits can actually have some impact.

The Cambridge educated theater critic for the Financial Times , Terence Ian Shuttleworth, in his review of "The Body episode of Buffy" said "It is simply one of the finest pieces of television drama, and the single finest depiction of bereavement in any medium, that I have ever seen."

I was mildly interested until I read USA Today yesterday. The paper article compared it to The 4400 from a few years ago, said this show is a weak soap opera that fills the hours with extraneous fluff, and leaves you hanging in mid-event with no closure, at the end of its 8-episode arc which'll frustrate the viewers. The author warns us not to bother watching it. I will heed his advice.

"It's a short-run series – and in that distinction lies all its problems, from its padding and stretching to its avoidance of an actual conclusion. Granted, those problems do not arise in Sunday's beautiful, dream-like opening episode." Or in the ads for the show.

An entire topic I'd like to avoid.

Quote: Fleastiff

"It's a short-run series -

Usually the short run series that start in Winter (or even worse in Summer) are just filler that the networks think will never make it. Of course, the biggest exception was Seinfeld.

Seinfeld was considered a failed pilot in 1989.
Then they aired 4 more episodes from May 31 to June 21, 1990 (the smallest sitcom order in television history)
Finally it graduated to mid-season replacement with 12 episodes from January 23 to June 26, 1991
Only then in Sep 1991 was it given a normal 23 episode run.
The following year (Sep 1992) it was ranked #25.
After that the show ranked in the top 3 for the rest of it's run.
They had aired 86 episodes by May 19, 1994 so they could sell the show into syndication

$598 million earned by the show in first-cycle off-network revenue,
$984 million in second-cycle off network monies and
$703 million in its third cycle.

$180 million the cable first cycle
$113 million in the second and
$86 million in the third.

Quote: Pacomartin

Of course, the biggest exception was Seinfeld.

Of course there are always exceptions...
Just before the release of Flashdance, another sure flop, the owners sold half the profits for a guaranteed take of peanuts. (I don't know the exact figures).
And Casablanca was really a failure until someone started claiming that it was a cult film and therefore it became a cult film and became profitable.

Mrs watched it, I messed around on the computer with an eye on the TV every now and then. It seemed like hogwash to me.