Time Cop (Series Premiere)
Aired: United States, ABC Television
Monday, September 22nd, 1997.
10:00 - 11:00 PM.
Here is a little something in the States about Jack the Ripper, sort of. It's just a premiere of a TV show, about time travel. The first episode sets a criminal in London, 1888, trying to make more victims.. I just thought I would send this to you.
REVIEW/TELEVISION: Time's Up For 'Timecop'
Timecop (Mon. (22), 10-11 p.m., ABC)
By Julio Martinez
HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - It might have been hot stuff on the comic page and on the large screen, but ABC's sojourn into futuristic cops-and-robbers time travel is a profound yawner, judging by the debut offering.
Set in the year 2007, the decidedly uncharismatic T. W. King portrays lawman Jack Logan, an operative for the high tech crime fighting organization T.E.C. It is this group's job it to police the volatile space-time continuum for criminals who might threaten to change the course of history and potentially cause the destruction of earth itself. Logan's task is complicated by the instability of time-travel technology that is always presenting our hero with unforeseen problems to solve, fight his way out of or flee.
A good deal of the premiere episode is spent establishing Logan as a wisecracking maverick who proves a constant irritation to his no-nonsense, get-the-job-done boss Eugene Matuzek (Don Stark).
Also introduced are the irreverent historical expert Dr. Dale Easter (Kurt Fuller) and sarcastic technician Claire Hemmings (Cristi Conaway), who is constantly trading painfully pedestrian quips and barbs with Logan. Actually, King and Conaway are so lacking in mutual chemistry it's difficult to imagine future episodes highlighting a developing social-sexual tension between their characters.
This time out, a historical ripple is being caused by Ian Pascoe (Tom O'Brien), a psychotic time traveler who has journeyed to 1888 London to take the place of Jack the Ripper. Pascoe's nefarious plan is to go far beyond the Ripper's recorded five kills, which would alter the future considerably. Logan's orders are to stop this Ripper wannabe before he can do serious damage to recorded history.
With the T.E.C. team lending support from the homefront, Logan does battle with Pascoe by enlisting the aid of a pair of ludicrously convenient 19th century allies: Anne Thompson (Anna Galvin), a comely prostitute with an uncanny ability to draw a true-to-life sketch of Pascoe's face after only a fleeting glimpse of the killer; and crusty Inspector Wells (W. Morgan Sheppard), who becomes sympathetic to Logan's tale of time-travel because the good inspector just happens to have a storytelling young nephew with the initials H.G.
Still, the gaggle of producers associated with this effort have neglected their most intriguing premise -- history. They would do better to invest more historical substance and plot development into fiuture episodes.
The techno wizardry displayed throughout the episode is not imaginative or spectacular enough to add drama or energy to the proceedings.
It would also help if the supposed geniuses at T.E.C. could inject a dose of personality into Logan.
Cast: T. W. King, Cristi Conaway, Don Stark, Kurt Fuller, Tom O'Brien, W. Morgan Sheppard, Anna Galvin, Ric Sarabia, Belinda Waymouth, Saige Ophelia Spinney, John Maynard, Tim O'Hare, Simon Billig, Michael Holden.
Filmed in Los Angeles by Lawrence Gordon Prods., December Third Prods. and Dark Horse Entertainment in association with Universal Television. Based on the Dark Horse Comic created by Mike Richardson & Mark Verheiden. Exec. producers, Lawrence Gordon, Robert Singer; co-executive producers, Mike Richardson, Lloyd Levin, Art Monterastelli; supervising producer, Verheiden; producers, Philip Gough, Miles Millar, Monterastelli; created for television by Verheiden; story by Gough, Millar, Monterastelli; written by Gough, Millar; directed by Allan Arkush; executive story editor, Elliot Stern; story editors, Gough, Millar; director of photography, Ross Berryman; music, Brad Fiedel; production design, Jim Pohl; editor, John Showalter; set decorator, Joseph Kroesser; costume design, Darryl Levine; key makeup, Carla Fabrizi; casting, Robert J. Ulrich.
Reuters/Variety |
