New TV Show - Second Chance
I’ve been taping Second Chance on Fox, mainly because it stars Robert Kazinsky (who played Chuck Hansen in Pacific Rim) in the title role as Sherriff Jimmy Prichard. He plays a 75 year old man who has been brought back from the dead. The show also stars Tim DeKay, who I recognize from back when I used to watch the early episodes of White Collar, as his FBI agent son. I watched the first two episodes on the DVR last night.
When I was Googling for character names, I saw an article that described it as a “Frankenstein-y sci-fi drama” but really, it’s almost more like a Dracula drama, because he was resurrected from the dead by genius Otto Goodwin to save his twin sister Mary, who is dying of cancer. Instead of getting chemo, she now gets transfusions of Jimmy’s blood. And I suspect there’s going to be a creepy romance element in here between the two. Our boy Otto is probably somewhere on the genius end of the autism spectrum? He only spoke his own made-up twin language with his sister until he was nine, and then he founded a ubiquitous social media company called Lookinglass that sounds like what you’d get if Google and Facebook had an unholy love child. So they’re stinking rich, have a huge house and lots of cars, and computer access/hacking ability to get into everything. Oh, and Otto has a house AI named Arthur that functions pretty much like Jarvis in the Iron Man movies. Except that he has a cute little cartoon avatar that appears on the computer monitors when he’s talking to you.
Should I think it weird that the twins look Indian or Pakistani but are walking around with names like Otto and Mary? I’m all for diversity and casting POC in more roles, but I probably would have changed their names to something more appropriate, because I always think of Otto as a German name, and they don’t look the slightest bit German.
I’m not sure if I’m going to continue on with this show, but we’ll give it a couple more episodes and see if I warm up to it. The premise is interesting, but because the lead is a resurrected 75 year old man in a 30 year old body, he’s a womanizing, hard drinking sexist dinosaur who is pretty much computer illiterate (“Does this thing have the Internet?”). And I’m not sure how badly that’s going to grate on me. And Ottos’s resurrection formula worked so well that he almost has superpowers (“His body is functioning like an elite athlete!”). Except that (much like how Aquaman has to get wet every so often) he has to go back in the resurrection tank at regular intervals to recharge his batteries or he starts “rejecting” the resurrection. Interesting plot device you’ve got there. It’s a nice way to tie him to the Wonder Twins, but again, not sure if it’s going to become annoying or not.
When I was Googling for character names, I saw an article that described it as a “Frankenstein-y sci-fi drama” but really, it’s almost more like a Dracula drama, because he was resurrected from the dead by genius Otto Goodwin to save his twin sister Mary, who is dying of cancer. Instead of getting chemo, she now gets transfusions of Jimmy’s blood. And I suspect there’s going to be a creepy romance element in here between the two. Our boy Otto is probably somewhere on the genius end of the autism spectrum? He only spoke his own made-up twin language with his sister until he was nine, and then he founded a ubiquitous social media company called Lookinglass that sounds like what you’d get if Google and Facebook had an unholy love child. So they’re stinking rich, have a huge house and lots of cars, and computer access/hacking ability to get into everything. Oh, and Otto has a house AI named Arthur that functions pretty much like Jarvis in the Iron Man movies. Except that he has a cute little cartoon avatar that appears on the computer monitors when he’s talking to you.
Should I think it weird that the twins look Indian or Pakistani but are walking around with names like Otto and Mary? I’m all for diversity and casting POC in more roles, but I probably would have changed their names to something more appropriate, because I always think of Otto as a German name, and they don’t look the slightest bit German.
I’m not sure if I’m going to continue on with this show, but we’ll give it a couple more episodes and see if I warm up to it. The premise is interesting, but because the lead is a resurrected 75 year old man in a 30 year old body, he’s a womanizing, hard drinking sexist dinosaur who is pretty much computer illiterate (“Does this thing have the Internet?”). And I’m not sure how badly that’s going to grate on me. And Ottos’s resurrection formula worked so well that he almost has superpowers (“His body is functioning like an elite athlete!”). Except that (much like how Aquaman has to get wet every so often) he has to go back in the resurrection tank at regular intervals to recharge his batteries or he starts “rejecting” the resurrection. Interesting plot device you’ve got there. It’s a nice way to tie him to the Wonder Twins, but again, not sure if it’s going to become annoying or not.