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Review:
Blade Squad
Written
by Rick Ellis
By
any way of measurement, the late Brandon Tartikoff was a programming
genius. When he was running NBC he built the foundation that the
network continues to milk today. From Miami Vice to Cheers,
Tartikoff was in the thick of things, prodding and persuading everyone
to do it just a little better.
But this was also the guy who believed in ideas like Manimal,
and The Pink Lady And Jeff Show. Despite his talents, he
made mistakes...and usually when he did, they were big ones.
After leaving NBC, Tartikoff went to Paramount and then out his
own. And one of the projects left unfinished when he died last year
was Blade Squad, a made-for-tv movie/pilot that his wife
decided to finish for him.
Unfortunately, this turned out to be less a tribute to his talents
than a reminder of his missteps. Blade Squad is clumsy, poorly-
written, and it has all of the subtly of Steven Segal movie.
The movie takes place in the near future, apparently a time so forlorn
that they no longer have logical plots. The traffic is bad and crme
is worse, so a police commander comes up with the idea for "Blade
Squad," a team of crime-fighting online skaters. And since this
is the future, why not equip them with rocket- powered backpacks
and futuristic radar?
The plot doesn't matter, or at least, I can't remember much of it.
Everytime I was tempted to start paying attention, some hunk of
dialogue was spewed out so bad that it must have induced temporary
amnesia.
This program has it all--the doubting commander who wants to shut
the squad down; the hotshot squad member who ends up injured; the
wandering girlfriend who manages to end up sleeping with the man
who caused her cop boyfriend's accident.
This is clumsy, inept television...even for something airing on
Fox in August. It's not the worst thing on television this week,
but it's certainly the most frustrating.
And that sound you hear is the body of Brandon Tartikoff spinning
in his grave like a turbine.
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