(1996)
"Profit - A Name You Can't Trust."
I don't usually review TV shows but I had to make an exception for "Profit".
Recently released for the first time ever, and on DVD, this deliciously evil short-lived series from 1996 was far ahead of its time. Today, in the era of HBO and shows such as "The Sopranos", the then-outrageous TV show "Profit" would fit right in. Lasting a mere season because of the uproar over its subject matter and its in-your-face handling of same (for example, the relationship between Jim Profit and his drug-addled trashy stepmother, wonderfully portrayed by Lisa Blount, sent conservatives into a tailspin), when I first saw the show I was immediately hooked, and was floored when it was cancelled.
My husband had heard me lament the demise of the show (he had never seen it). When he saw in a magazine that it was going to be released, and on DVD - the pilot, the 3 episodes that were aired in the USA, plus the 4 episodes I never got to see, that were released in France - he said "Isn't that the show you're always talking about that was cancelled that you loved so much?" - I looked at the article and literally made a beeline to my computer, credit card in hand. The DVD set includes some great interviews with the different people involved in the creation of the show.
As soon as it arrived, my husband started watching it with me and was even more hooked than I had been, especially at the pilot's amazing ending (I won't spoil it). After the pilot he said "That just makes me want to watch more!" It was everything I remembered: handsome, suave, charismatic, and completely evil Jim Profit (wonderfully portrayed by Adrian Pasdar), a warped product of insane parents and a horrible upbringing (his father made him live and sleep in a carboard box with a hole cut out so that he could just see a TV screen) uses any means in his power to get ahead in his quest to attain ownership of Gracen & Gracen, a powerful corporation. To say much more than this would spoil the story.
Watching the entire series, my husband and I treated it like a miniseries...and as we neared the last episode, I found myself saying, "Soon, there will be no more Profit! We're almost through it all!" I found myself suggesting after it was all over, that they bring the series back...hey, what's Adrian Pasdar doing these days?
Maybe HBO could pick it up, get at least some of the original cast back to participate - they'd have to have Pasdar - and do a "9 years later" and start the ball rolling again with a "9 years later" episode. What's the rest of the original cast up to these days (including Lisa Zane, actor Billy Zane's sister, as Joanne Meltzer, Jim Profit's arch-nemesis)? HBO should get some smarts and grab it up and run with it! FOX was smart enough to snatch it up back then; today it'd be perfect for cable TV.
"Profit" only suffered from its timing, as that there were no cable networks back then such as HBO, and apparently it was just too much for most of mainstream America. Brilliantly written and cast, one of the best TV shows I have ever seen, and as relevant now as it was then, "Profit" is a sheer masterpiece of film noir TV, and there has been nothing like it before or since. Buy it and watch it over and over - two words describe it better than any long review of it could: "Deliciously evil."
