Review of Profit: The Complete Series

Introduction

Imagine one of the biggest companies in the US. Imagine that one of their senior officers is a psychopath. Imagine what havoc could be caused and how many lives could be ruined. Imagine all this and you very nearly have the shortlived and simply stunning series named Profit.

Jim Profit (Adrian Pasdar) is a charismatic sociopath who is climbing the ladder in Gracen & Gracen (or G&G as it`s more commonly referred to). Profit has already sought out a not so willing accomplice in his schemes in assistant Gail Koner (Lisa Darr), and is the golden boy of company CEO Chaz Gracen (Keith Szarabajka). Profit has a couple of foils though, as near to the side of good as you`re going to get; Head of Corporate Security Joanne Meltzer (Lisa Zane) and Jeffrey Sykes (Sherman Augustus), a lawyer with a social conscience who also has a hidden agenda.

Profit is no ordinary corporate lackey though, he spent his childhood living in a box, living in a cardboard box. Abused by his father, he spent his formative years in a box with the G&G logo on it and staring out of a hole cut in the side watching TV, from whence he learned his lessons on life and is now striving to put them to good use within G&G. The one blot on Profit`s landscape, in his judgement anyway, is the reappearance of stepmother Bobby (Lisa Blount), who needs some real motherly love now and again…

With it`s completely dark tone, this series only lasted 8 episodes before Fox criminally pulled the plug. The last four episodes were never even aired.

Pilot - Jim Profit aims to eliminate the reigning President of Acquisitions by leaking damaging information to the press.

Hero - Jack Walters and security chief Joanne Meltzer delve into Profit`s past. Meanwhile, Profit befriends Jack`s vulnerable wife, who inadvertently provides him with the means to neutralize their threat and to advance his own nefarious plans.

Sykes - Profit is ordered to recruit the dynamic Jeffrey Sykes to Gracen & Gracen and to acquire the business holdings of a Russian mobster. Meanwhile, his stepmother, and occasional lover, is blackmailing him.

Healing - Charles Gracen determines to put an end to the conflict between Jim Profit and Joanne Meltzer by making them take lie-detector tests.

Cupid - Gracen & Gracen is close to signing an acquisition deal with Ray and Anna Kestrel. Ray backs out of the deal until Anna comes back to him, but she is reluctant to return and experience his abusive reign of terror for a second time just to secure the deal.

Chinese Box - Profit must break away from Wong Industries to stop an FBI investigation.

Security - One of the workers in the security department turns out to be an undercover journalist writing and expose on corruption within the company.
Forgiveness - When Pete Gracen decides to make a takeover bid for the company with his wife`s uncle, she makes a startling revelation about him.

Video

Oddly when you consider many 80`s shows, this 90`s show looks rather dated now in terms of fashion at least. Some nice outside shots and some imaginative sets with dark or dimmed lighting, colours are normally very deep (like the suits…). The other much more dated look is the use of computer imagery. Set a show in an office environment where people use computers a lot and you`re going to struggle to make it look interesting. The creators of this show went down the pseudo VR route that the Douglas/Moore film Disclosure also went down and it mostly looks rather dull and bland, only the exploding heads looking good now. It looked great at the time, just like that Dire Straits video did back in 1985…

Audio

Dolby Digitial Stereo soundtrack, no subtitles. What does need mentioning though is the rather striking theme tune by Mike Post…

Features

Greed Kills - a nice one hour retrospective documentary on the show featuring contributions from most of the cast and crew, as well as Stephen J.Cannell himself who financed the whole thing and loved it.

Commentaries on a few of the episodes by creators/writers David Greenwalt and John McNamara and main star Adrian Pasdar. Bit hit and miss these and Greenwalt and McNamara tend to talk a lot and repeat themselves whilst not really letting Pasdar get in that much. So funny parts though and the commentary for last episode Forgiveness sees them talking about where they saw the show going and gave away some future potential plot lines prior to cancellation.

Conclusion

Now and again there comes a series that is just a little too ahead of its time. Profit is just one series. Although critically acclaimed, the audience fell into two distinct camps; those who loved it and those who hated it. It`s easy to see why on the surface of it. People find it quite hard to root for a villain who`s the main star. Not just any villain though, a complete psychopath who would probably need an army of psychiatrists to get to the root of his issues. This misjudges the show completely though.

Profit is a farce, pure and simple. Yes, on the surface of it Jim Profit is an evil man. Look a little deeper though and you see a man who just wants to be accepted wholeheartedly into the company he sees as family, having literally lived in a box of theirs in his youth. Profit wants to be your friend, but if he doesn`t need you then he`ll quite happily stomp you into the ground, especially if you look to thwart his plans. The fascination with this series is two-fold. Firstly Profit lets you know what he knows (reminiscent of Richard III) and how he is going to use it to set his latest plan in action. Secondly most of these plans involve a domino effect of events taking place, people just missing each other in corridors and one event triggering another, etc, etc. The brilliant thing about it all is that despite you knowing that it will never turn out exactly as he plans, you root for him and feel empathy for his character despite the fact you would ordinarily hate him in a different setting. One of the tricks that allows you to fall for his charm is the opening of the fourth wall at the beginning and end of each episode. He`s let you in and you`re hooked, especially when you hear that voice. An intermittent narration that gives you the next hint of what`s coming also helps. You`re helpless not to root for this character, despite common sense telling you not to.

I absolutely love this show and part of the attraction is the shock value of the series. I can remember watching the pilot quite clearly and being pretty impressed with it and then being completely blown away by the last scene. You already know the back story of Profit at this time, but for a well suited corporate man to strip naked and go to bed in a cardboard box with remnants of food scattered around it? Wow. That`s the only word to describe the emotional impact, I honestly can`t think of one show that`s had a closing scene with the same level of psychological twist for the viewer at the end. What was simply a story about corporate intrigue becomes something completely different in the space of 30 seconds.

The plots are also quite daring for the time, with corporate intrigue sharing a platform with motherly love between a stepmother and son, paternal murder, domestic violence and lesbian affairs (to name a handful of those crammed into 9 hours of TV). Looking back now, it`s incredible to think that they managed to get away with so much at the time, but truth tell it`s also probably why the show was cancelled so early.

Still, it`s better to burn out than to fade away…