At first you think it’s a rough draft for a theme park ride.
Then you wonder if it’s a knockoff of “Lost,” with a cast of shirtless hardbodies marooned on a pristine beach.
No, you decide, it’s just a derivative TV drama with pretensions to literature.
“Crusoe,” the expensive-looking NBC spectacle premiering Friday at 7 p.m. locally on Channel 9, wants to be taken seriously as the adaptation of Daniel Defoe’s classic. It wants our respect, beyond our curiosity about the MacGyver-style gadgets fashioned by Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday. But the real action is the speed with which the production rips off other pop entertainments.
The two-hour opener owes a debt to “Pirates of the Caribbean” as much as to Defoe and the stranded island dwellers on ABC.
In the NBC version, Philip Winchester makes a dashing Crusoe and, if left to his island survival battles (and interracial friendship with Friday), he would be watchable merely flexing and sweating. Unfortunately, the writers are determined to meld romance with adventure via sappy slow-motion flashbacks to Crusoe’s lady love in England, voiced over with cringe-inducing poetic longing.
Defoe’s novel is merely a jumping- off point for updated adventuring.
The book was published in 1719 as “The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an uninhabited Island on the coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver’d by Pyrates.” Right there, straight from Wikipedia, you have a more interesting diversion than that offered by the two-hour premiere. Can’t imagine watching 13 episodes.
“The Choice 2008”
Every four years for the past 20, PBS’s “Frontline” has tackled an indepth dual biography of the two presidential candidates. As usual, this year’s effort is incisive, balanced and eye-opening, even if you’ve followed the campaigns.
The battle of John McCain vs. Barack Obama can be abbreviated as “iconoclast vs. newcomer,” “POW vs. first African-American nominee.” The nuances are sifted and evaluated in interviews with strategists.
Years ago, the “Choice” programs dwelled on the formative childhood influences of the candidates. Those were psychologically intriguing pieces. This documentary focuses more on the past four years, starting when Obama gave his star-making speech at the Democratic convention in 2004 and McCain took the stage at the GOP convention, balancing the outsider role with that of the Bush team player. It’s still worthwhile, but more boyhood moments would have helped.
For the first time, “The Choice” is available free on iTunes and YouTube beginning Wednesday, and via a voter-education on-demand channel (on Comcast).
Trinidad, again
If you’ve lived in Colorado for any amount of time, you’ve doubtless heard and read accounts of the “sex change capital of the world,” the old Colorado mining town of Trinidad.
Tonight at 9, the rest of the world catches up when WE tv launches a six-part series, “Sex Change Hospital,” documenting the lives of patients taking the final step in transitioning from one gender to the other.
Marci Bowers, a transgender female surgeon, opens her operating room to the cameras. She talks to patients and their families, expressing empathy for those undergoing the difficult emotional experience.
The genital reassignment surgery is handled delicately (with the most graphic images blurred), but discretion is advised.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
