Maryland J. Koba takes time out from his Mooncross shopping to review The Pretender with our favorite bureaucrat, John Gegenhuber.
Ya know, once in a while the Koba is wrong about a show. I do have to admit that I was wrong about The Pretender when it first came out. I thought it was just another stupid NBC show. I was wrong. It's actually pretty good. Worth setting the VCR for (after C-16 and DS9, naturally...)
The premise behind "The Pretender" is that a genius named Jarod was raised by a secret quasi-Government outfit called "The Centre". Jarod escaped from The Centre with all of the documents related to his case, and goes around using his unique talents to help people. When he's not eluding the Centre team that's trying to bring him back, that is. The team is made up of the perpetually pre-menstrual Miss Parker, Jarod's former handler, Sidney, and the nerdy hacker Broots. Observent Earthies will notice that Sidney is played by Patrick Bauchau, best known for having no chemistry with Debrah Farentino in TGLSNT.
This week, Jarod is a plastic surgeon with a fascination with Play-doh. (Deprived of a normal childhood, Jarod is fascinated by things that we take for granted.) He's on staff at a ritzy Beverly Hills plastic surgery clinic, trying to find out who is responsible for the botching of a young woman's surgery. The girl was a charity case that was referred to the clinic by the county, and her surgery resulted in nerve damage that caused a horrifying scar. She hides in her room, and Jarod empathizes with her. After the accident, she started receiving mysterious gifts through the mail with no return address.
Anyway, JG plays Dr. Lawford, the manager of the Santa Barbara branch of the clinic. Jarod goes there after seeing that the mystery gifts had a Santa Barbara postmark. He insinuates to JG's character that a medical inquiry will be looking into the young woman's case, and that they can make this all go away with a few lies from JG. Well, like Morgan, John's character develops a spine in the end. He tells the whole story to Jarod - the chief doctor was doing a procedure on a rich client, something went wrong, and the doc used part of the girl's jaw to replace the missing bone in the rich client. In her haste, the doc caused irreparable nerve damage to the young girl. JG's "confession" helps Jarod to trap the bitchy doctor, and help the girl.
Actually, I was hoping that JG would be the one that Jarod was going after. That way, he'd get more screen time. Although he had a smaller part, it was very subtly played. I didn't realize until much later that LAWFORD was the mystery gift giver. He was doing it to ease his conscience about his silence. Although he only had one or two scenes, John did a great job with them. Plus, he was wearing a suit that was TO DIE FOR, which made him that much cuter. I can hear a certain RHM agreeing with me...
The Pretender is a nice little show. It's beginning to fall into a pattern, especially with Jarod setting right what once went wrong. What keeps it entertaining is the subplot of the folks at the Centre. Seems to me that our General Manager emulates Miss Parker a bit too much... #WHAP!#
In conclusion, I give JG playing doctor on "The Pretender" five cans of Play-Doh out of five for a well acted, if small part.
Oh, and Santa... Little Johnny Gegenhuber has been such a good boy this year. Please bring him a starring role in a successful series. Even if it isn't E2. This guy has too much talent to waste!
This is MJK, signing off for now...