I just finished watching this for the first time.

What were they thinking?

>What were they thinking?

[font color=purple]
Hard to tell. I don't think they were - thinking, that is. ;-) At least not about the characters. Tom went from an intellegent, likable gentle man who dated intellegent, pretty, nice ladies, to an insanely jealous idiot over a woman who looked liked a reject from the Mustang Ranch. True to his character? NOT!

Cassie must have driven him over the edge. Yeah, that's it, Cassie's fault.:+:+

I always wondered how they would have resolved that episode had the series been renewed and had Chris Potter stayed with it. However, I don't think I'm ready for a SS reunion movie...
KFTLC, maybe, but not SS.


Barb
Guess I'll get me a dawg and a git-tar.

>I just finished watching this for
>the first time.
>
>What were they thinking?



Oh Good, I thought I was the only one who hated (yes hated) this episode of SS. It was just plain awful when it first aired and watching it on tape the second time was worse. I love the Tom in Runway Strip and Night of the Parrot and most of the other episodes, but this Tom, who was he? I never saw him in SS before.

Barbara

All I can think is that somebody thought this final ep would be a good opportunity for CP and JG to do some serious scenery chewing. And, really, they did give great angst. In real life it's true that anything can happen to anybody at any time - at least I think it's true that under the right circumstances, anybody is capable of anything.

The thing is, this series ender is not what the SS audience signed up for. Did Joss Whedon come in at the 11th hour and re-write the script or what?

I could dwell on this for awhile. Do a dissertation on real life versus continuity.

But I won't.

ITA, I remember watching this episode and sitting there thinking "what was that?" when it was done.........totally so "not Tom".
USA had a habit of having shows that ended stupidly (is that a word???) Pac Blue ended and we never found out who the daddy of Corey's baby was....and Nikita.....she and Michael did not get to gether.......all 3 endings stunk!!!!

At that point, I think they were trying to a desperate bid for renewal by suggesting a completely new direction for the series to match the dark, angst-filled direction that many the other "successful" cable shows were going. It's like all of the shows trying to emulate "The Sopranos" or "Sex in the City". It didn't work, thank goodness!

As for continuity...don't get me started.

There was a Michael Potter listed in the credits of this ep. I think he played the guy in the evidence room.

Any relation?

I may be alone in this but I liked "Noir". I liked "Arachnid" too, but I do collect B-movies from the 1950's and 60's so my opinion doesn't really count on that one!

I think "Noir" really gave Chris a chance to expand on "good ol'" Tom and fine tune his acting skills.

Tom was so desperate to love and be loved that he flipped.

Listen to the voice of experience here, people CAN and DO have abrupt changes in personalities. I was married for 30 years to a very sweet man, a real family man. Then in his late forties he hit a deep midlife crisis, he was going to stay young forever and never grow old. He got into drugs, drinking and all the bad things that follow. He become cruel and said and did awful things. Needless to say after 8 months of that and a two year seperation the marriage went down the tubes a few years ago. Even though our children were adults with familes at the time it still affected them deeply. So don't say the "Noir" Tom wasn't consistent with the "old" Tom. Believe me, you just never know!
Mickie

[FONT COLOR=RED]"Noir" really gave Chris a chance to expand on "good ol'" Tom and fine tune his acting skills.[/FONT]

Yep. It was Chris (acting). But it wasn't Tom.

I think that Carolyn is spot-on-the-money that what the Silk producers were trying to do was transform the show into "darker material".

Silk always was a trendy and formulaic show. At first, they took the Miami Vice look/feel and went a little further with it (especially in combining odd lighting/shading with bright, contrasting colors).

Then, they jumped on the T+A bandwagon for awhile when the show moved to USA (from CBS originally, as I recall). For a long while there, almost every EP begin with about 5 to 10 minutes of "soft porn". That's how formuliac the show was.

By the time that Silk looked like it had run its course, USA's most popular shows were "dark" dramas and cop shows, full of seriously flawed main characters. (ie, "Nikita" was a good example). I suspect that the producers hoped to keep Silk going by adopting that same formula.

I also think that part of it had to do with the casting problems. Janet Gunn was leaving. They had to make a major change in the cast anyway, so they were probably setting up the characters for a major "rift" that would explain Cassy leaving. And it looks like they were going to use a seriously dark dramatic event to explain the impetus behind her actions. Perhaps they were even throwing Chris a bone, by giving him something very different to do, so that he'd be more willing to stay onboard longer. (I think that his contract was up for renewal the following season. And he didn't seem all that thrilled with the gig by the time the 7th season was over. I think he wanted to move on, too).

Also, after Janet Gunn decided to leave, there was some question whether the show would have another season at all. The producers probably felt compelled to try something desperate and dramatically different to "save" the show. They looked around at what was the "hot trend" and went for it.

More than anything, "Noir" screams "we're making some changes to the show, including even the cast".

[FONT COLOR=RED]Tom was so desperate to love and be loved that he flipped.[/FONT]

That's Peter Caine you're talking about!

[FONT COLOR=RED]So don't say the "Noir" Tom wasn't consistent
with the "old" Tom.[/FONT]

Nuh-uh. It wasn't my Tom.

It was Chris Potter having one last chance to "ham it up" for the camera before Silk wrapped up.

[FONT COLOR=RED]I do collect B-movies from the 1950's and 60's[/FONT]

Because you think that they're good, or because you think that they're really bad (and you enjoy the "camp" of it)?

If a movie is really, really bad, sometimes I'll tape it, and watch it for chuckles. In my collection is "Terror from Tiny Town" (an old western with an all-midget cast riding very small horses and singing terrible cowboy songs offkey), "Red Nightmare" (a hysterical "documentary" about the "perils" of communism made during the cold war), and "Plan 9 from Outer Space" (an Ed Wood classic. It starred Boris Karloff for about the first 15 minutes of the movie. Boris died halfway through the shooting, so rather than scrap the movie, Ed Wood hired his chiropractor to fill in the remainder of the part. Nevermind that the chiropractor was about a foot taller than Boris and had a full head of hair. The chiropractor simply covered his face with his cape in every scene. This movie features the best taunt ever uttered by an alien invader -- "All you of Earth are idiots! Idiots!").

But I will never, never again watch "Eraserhead". That has to be one of the worst pieces of inexplicable trash ever filmed. It's just too annoying to be amusing.

[font color = red]But I will never, never again watch "Eraserhead". That has to be one of the worst pieces of inexplicable trash ever filmed. It's just too annoying to be amusing. [/font]

Again? You must have a stomach of steel. I couldn't get past the first thirty minutes!

>[FONT COLOR=RED]It was Chris Potter having one last chance to "ham it up" for the camera before Silk wrapped up. [/FONT]

Ouch. To me (a former performer - ), the expression 'ham it up' has negative connotations. Noir's script pretty much dictated that DOA style of acting and directing. Within that, uh, venue, I don't think Chris went over the top. I simply disagree with the concept of the script itself. It was out of context for the audience's expectations. (Not, as I said earlier, out of context with RL - but nobody watching SS on a regular basis was ever lead to expect RL)

JG,

Of course, the B sci-fi movies are really bad and yes it is the campiness (is that a word?) that I love. Like seeing "Tonka" written on the side of a truck that Godzilla rolls down a mountain or noteing the zippers in the "monsters" costumes. Such fun!

I have "Terror in Tiny Town" too. Couldn't watch all of "Eraserhead" way toooooooo bad. I have not seen the Karlof movie, must check that out.

Yes, I do agree about your observations on SS. I just wanted to add an extra reason for the "flip" in character. Never said SS was RL (I know Pan mentioned this so don't yell at me) but even "fictional" characters change, it keeps them interesting. Maybe the writter was a "method" writter!

You know what?! I bet the reason Tom was so deperate for love was because he never met you!! That has got to be it!

I love your posts and you are the one that keeps me lurking here.

Mickie

[FONT COLOR=RED]it is the campiness that I love.[/FONT]

In that case, there's a very funny movie you should watch called "It came from Hollywood". I'm not sure of the exact release date, but I believe it came out in the early 80's, or maybe even late 70's. It was a collection of the worst clips from some of the worst movies ever made, with funny commentary by Dan Akroyd, Gilda Radner, Steve Martin, John Candy, and Cheech and Chong. (It was sort of like the precursor to Mystery Science Theatre, except with excerpts of numerous movies, instead of just one movie).

It featured a mini-tribute to Ed Wood, who is considered the King of bad B-movies. His "Plan 9 from Outer Space" is considered by many to be one of the most unintentionally cheesy movies ever made. (Ed Wood directed movies back in the 40's). Wood later directed a movie called "Glen or Glenda", about a cross-dresser. He also starred in the movie as the cross-dresser himself. (It was a subject dear to his heart). Some of the lines in that movie are a hoot. Just about every Ed Wood movie is a bonafide turkey.

Unfortunately, "It came from Hollywood" is a hard one to find, but it's worth a look.

Mickie, you sound like my kind of movie fan! Fan of Ed Wood before most people had even heard of "Plan 9 of Outer Space", let alone "Glen or Glenda: I Led Two Lives". Used to catch a double feature every Wednesday as a kid in Miami Beach of Sci-Fi/Horror flicks. I think I've seen everyone.

Long before MST3K and the availability of *everything* on video, Armadillocon in Austin, Texas used to specialize in a film schedule of incredibly bad movies with a lot of audience commentary. A few of the best for hooting were : Robot Monster (a guy in a gorilla suit with a "space helmet" that blew bubbles who was suppose to be an alien attacker; it's the only movie to ever give a credit to the "Incredible Bubblemaking Machine"); Manster (a Japanese classic about a guy who grew a second head; It inspired a costume for work one Halloween that won me a prize); The Brain Eaters (the truly sad thing about this movie is that the Washington politician is so realistic these days); and the hallmark (low water mark depending upon you POV) -- Creeping Terror (a movie which not only lost 45 minutes of the soundtrack so they had to write a narration for most of the dialog which for some reason doesn't always match the action on screen, but features the world's slowest moving walking shag carpet monster; the guy in the monster "suit" (a shag carpet stretched over a wooden frame on the guy's shoulders that hangs down the back like a Chinese dragon costume) moves so slowly and poorly that the "victims" actually have to scooch themselves into the monster's maw to be eaten. And for some never explained reason the monster always leaves behind the shoes...).

These, BTW, are the real classic kind of SF/Horror movies. There's no graphic violence or soft core sado-masochistic torture shots, just lots of bad dialog, bad plot, bad cinematography and a sincere desire to make a movie on no budget and less time.

Of course, if you want to have a more contemporary Turkey Award Fest, there's always the double feature: "Big Trouble in Little China" and "Buckaroo Banzai in the Eight Dimension". Where are we going? Planet X. When are we going to get there? Real soon! Remeber, no matter where go, there you are. It's not my damn planet, monkey boy!

And when you're ready for some real mind trashing, hunt up a little DVD at your local anime/Japanese/Chinese martial arts cinema shop called "Swordman II". Not only is this a transgender-bender Chinese historical soap opera, but the poor translation and assumptions you know about traditional martial arts schools leads to confusion regarding the size of Chinese families and their overfriendliness to one another... plus you'll never be able to look at a needle and thread without viewing it as a weapon -- although one hopes not a weapon that Peter Caine would ever be using given what a guy has to sacrifice in order to gain that set of powers!

Okay, now you got me wanting to stop and smell the popcorn. Where did that box of videos with the Turkeys on it go (no, Steve, no Fu Season 3. The *other* box of turkeys...)

[FONT COLOR=RED]These, BTW, are the real classic kind of SF/Horror movies.[/FONT]

Ironically, every one of those B movies you mentioned above has an excerpt shown in "It came from Hollywood".

[FONT COLOR=RED]"Buckaroo Banzai in the Eight Dimension".[/FONT]

Hey! I like that movie! That was a funny (but very weird) flick. I saw it at the theatre when it first came out, and recently bought the DVD.

[FONT COLOR=RED]"Swordman II"[/FONT]

Now this is one that I haven't seen. But I'm not really into the martial arts movies, and there were so many bad ones.

>[FONT COLOR=RED]"Buckaroo Banzai in the Eight
>Dimension".
>
>Hey! I like that movie! That
>was a funny (but very
>weird) flick. I saw it
>at the theatre when it
>first came out, and recently
>bought the DVD.[/FONT]

I adore that movie. Glad to know it's on DVD, now I have a backup when my other half needs a present. Wish to heaven Weller had made a couple more of those, instead of fifteen-million "Robocop"s. (Will confess I don't watch it for Weller, tho...)

TTFN,
Alliterative Lori

Mickie, you're not alone. I also liked Noir, now I'm not saying it was Tom or even Silk, but I liked what they were trying to do with it. I also liked that CP had so much screen time. And I really loved Tom telling Cassy off. Although I wasn't thrilled when he tried to take it back.

I agree the experiment failed, probably because the episode was so radically different, and we never saw any hints in other episodes that they were turning in this direction. It would have been interesting to see them carry through the darker version, especially without the annoying and non-acting Janet Gunn.

I liked Arachnid, too. Well, except for the vomiting slugs part, coulda done nicely without that visual. It was fun as an action/horror flick. It does very well on a double bill with Empire of the Ants, starring the late Robert Lansing. Last time we invited friends over and watched both movies we dubbed it "Good Fu Actors in Bad Bug Flicks" night. The more alcohol imbibed, the better the movies were. And CP under any circumstances, is easy on the eyes.

Jan

Jan,

I just read your post regarding Noir. I was glad to read that you also liked the scene when Tom tells Cassie off. I waited for 3 years to hear Tom let Cassie "have it". For the entire 3 years, Cassie did nothing but belittle Tom all under the guise of "teasing". And isn't she the one who said at the end of Noir (and I'm paraphrasing here) there are more truths told when someone has had too much to drink or is joking?

mj

In Vino Veritas?

Geez, I think somebody said that before Cass.

TTFN,
Alliterative Lori