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25 June, 2001
Review of The Chronicle Pilot Episode
Set to air: 7.14.01
Believe everything. And we mean everything. That's what former Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tucker Burns learns when he takes a career detour to join the staff of one of the world's least reputable tabloids -- The World Chronicle.
SCI FI's newest original series, The Chronicle, premieres as part of the second annual "Summer of Sci Fi." It is set to air on Saturdays, as part of Saturday Prime. Up til now, SCI FI's track record with original programming has been a mixed bag. On the one hand, we've had gems like Farscape, The Invisible Man, Lexx, and Frank Herbert's Dune. On the flip side, they've given us such forgettable fare as Ultraviolet, The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne, and Black Scorpion. So which category will The Chronicle fall into?
Well, I'd like to think that I'm fairly well tapped into the collective conscienceness of SCI FI's fan base, and this show has all the makings of a potential hit. The basic premise is this: Tucker Burns is a recent gruduate of Columbia's School of Journalism. Problem is, after a key lapse in judgement, his credibility and career are in the gutter. Forced to take a job at a tabloid just to pay the bills, Tucker soon realizes his education hasn't prepared him for reporting the news that really matters.
In the pilot, we are introduced to Tucker (Chad Willett - Steal This Movie, TV's Jack & Jill) who has already been rejected by 47 different organizations, and his live-in girlfriend is hounding him to get a job. Any job. Desperate, he accepts a position with The World Chronicle. His first assignment -- a creature on the loose called the Brooklyn Bloodsucker. With help from two of his colleagues, the feisty and alluring reporter Grace Hall (Rena Sofer -- Ed, Melrose Place) and enthusiastic, streetwise photographer Wes Freewald (Reno Wilson -- Mighty Joe Young, Fallen), Tucker sets out to uncover the truth. The truth, however, is a bit more than he'd bargained for when he sees the creature first hand flying out the windshield of Wes' van, and just manages to get out of the way.
Having always believed the stories in The Chronicle to be total crap, Tucker has a hard time accepting that some of them, let alone all, contain any truth. And it doesn't give the rag much legitimacy when Grace tells him about her alien abductions, or when Wes cries over the article about a mothman being kept in a jar. But now he's seen something strange for himself. Not to mention the paper's vast archives which house countless oddities and supposed alien samples. And did I mention archive keeper Sal (Curtis Armstrong -- Booger, from Revenge of the Nerds) a.k.a "Pig Boy", who is a half man, half pig? It's this struggle of Tucker's trying to balance the securities of his old world and the discoveries of this new one, that highlight the first episode.
To great effect, the show combines elements of Men In Black and The X-Files. It's funny, sharply written, and surprisingly well-acted. Rena Sofer is an actress I'd had my eyes on since her recurring role on Ed. When she's onscreen, she's simply radiant. Reno Wilson I'd never seen before, but he brings a lot of energy and humor to his role. Most importantly, the two of them, along with Chad Willett (who is fine in his own right) have real chemistry. I'm a little less sold on Pig Boy, because it seems a little forced, but he does have some good lines. "Did you just grab my ass?" accuses Grace. "Whatcha expect?...I'm a pig." Veteran character actor Jon Polito also does well in his role of the paper's editor-in-chief.
So will the show be a success? I can't say for sure. That will completely depend on how fresh and interesting the writers can make it on a weekly basis. One problem I see in the long run is Tucker's character becoming less interesting if he suddenly buys into all the crackpot headlines like "Demon In My Toilet." Now I'll be the first to admit I was skeptical about this series, but what I can say for sure is that the pilot episode is great, and you'd be doing yourself a disservice to miss it.
The pilot premieres Saturday, July 14th at 9PM ET/PT. SCI FI will air two back-to-back episodes that night. "What Gobbles Beneath" will follow at 10PM ET/PT. The pilot will be preceded by a special broadcast of a new episode of Farscape.
The weekly one-hour show comes from writer/creator Silvio Horta (Urban Legends). Robert Greenblatt, David Janollari, and Gina Matthews also produce. The pilot is directed by Marc Buckland.
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