Reasons to Love the Pretender (And Reasons to Hate It)

WHAT IT WAS
The Pretender was a science fiction drama which aired Saturday nights on NBC from 1996-2000. It was about a genius named Jarod who was kidnapped from his family as a child and raised by a corporation called the Centre,which abused him in order to get him to work for them and use his genius towards their greedy goals. Finally when he is older he escapes, and goes on a mission to make up for the horrors that he helped to commit. Sent by the Centre to chase after him are the lovely Miss Parker, one of Jarod's few childhood friends whom the Centre has turned against him, Sydney, the man who raised Jarod inside the Centre, and lowly tech geek Mr. Broots. Throughout the show, both Jarod and Miss Parker are trying to discover clues to their families and their past as it relates to the Centre.

WHY IT WAS GOOD

The Characters-
From the beginning, some really interesting dynamics were set up between the characters. Parker was once friends with Jarod, and is now forced to chase him... Sydney is like a father to Jarod, but cannot be there for him in any way that counts... The relationships between the characters had the potential to be really different and interesting.

The Intrigue Within the Centre-
Within the organization itself, there was all this political maneuvering that was very interesting... People were trying to obtain power and keep it, but the balance was constantly shifting. The Centre was international. And it was enormous. There were all kinds of cracks people could fall through. It had the power to make people disappear, or make them exceedingly wealthy and powerful... that's kind of cool.

The Philosophical and Scientific Questions-
What if an organization were using genetic research like cloning to it's own advantage? What is science could unlock the full potential of the human mind? The Pretender explored many very cool questions about genetics, the mysteries of the human mind, corporate ethics, and a lot of other interesting topics. It was a show about the depths of depravity and evil. It was a show about what one man could overcome. It had the possibility to say something really different from other shows on the air.

The Potential Secrets the Characters Held- All of the characters had their secrets, some of them had the possibility to be bombshells. Who knew what the Centre was capable of? How evil was it? And what was Sydney hiding? What was Parker hiding? Was Broots really as unassuming as he seemed to be? There were so many different directions it could have gone.

WHY IT WAS BAD, HORRIBLY, HORRIBLY BAD

Because it completely wasted all of the above-mentioned good things!!!

The show wasted away it's character development. It got mired in the muck of the "will they or won't they" aspect of the Jarod/Parker relationship. The characters relationships didn't grow or evolve naturally, it seemed very forced. There was no focus on character growth- it was all about the plot, always moving it forward even when they should have stopped and savoured it for a while.

And the plot, oh god, the plot. It got worse with every episode. Every time a character died, he was back with a month. The secrets that were revealed became increasingly stupid... and when lingering questions were answered, the answer was usually unsatisfactory. You got the feeling the creators of the show simply said, "Hmmm... I guess this answers it." Didn't they bother to think ahead to what the answer would logically be before they asked the question?

Plus, it skirted over all of the serious issues it addressed. The characters were never truly put to their absolute limits. In a show about evil, nobody ever really actually died. Nobody ever really suffered and therefore, nobody ever really triumphed. (Unlike another show about evil, Buffy the Vampire Slayer which managed to convey a similar message about the nature of good and evil perfectly.)

That's not even taking into consideration the massive continuity problems the show had, as well as the horribly predictable nature of all of the stand alone episodes the show ever produced!

So, you're probably asking yourself why the hell I loved the show so much if it was so horrible. Well, I didn't really love the show... I loved the potential the show had. I loved the set-up of it. I watched every week hoping that it would get better. I hoped for a long time. Then it was cancelled. Hence, I now write and read fanfiction. In most cases the fanfiction I read is better than the show ever was. Oh well... One of these days, when I get my own TV show... then people will bitch about it the same way I am now. Because that's what crazy TV fans do. :)

If you would like to watch the train wreck that was The Pretender, it airs in repeats at 8pm weekly on TNT in the U.S., or 7pm weekly on Showcase Action in Canada.

You can read my fanfiction at Fanfiction.net or link to other, better Pretender fanfiction.