Sunday, September 8, 2013

‘Do No Harm,’ ‘666 Park Avenue’ get fitting endings

Summer is often when broadcast television networks burn off episodes of cancelled TV shows.
On Saturday, NBC finished the 13-episode run of “Do No Harm,” a modern take on “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” The show was canceled in February after just two episodes aired. The premiere was the lowest-rated in-season broadcast scripted series debut in modern history, EW reported.
I caught up on the show when NBC aired the remaining episodes starting in June.
“Do No Harm” was an interesting failure. I enjoyed the intellectual aspects of the struggle between Dr. Jason Cole and Ian Price, the two alternate personalities of the character played by Steven Pasquale. But the show lacked a sense of fun. And I didn’t find the evil side of Pasquale’s character to be very entertaining.
Still, the show kept my interest and I found the twist ending quite satisfying.
ABC’s supernatural drama “666 Park Avenue” ended its 13-episode run in mid-July. The haunted condo series suffered from meandering plot lines, cheesy special effects and pulled punches. It needed to be much scarier to work. Being on broadcast TV didn’t help it any. Compared with FX channel’s superior “American Horror Story,” “666 Park Avenue” was tame.
But I still enjoyed “666 Park Avenue” and appreciated the finale, which reminded me of “Rosemary’s Baby.”
While ABC aired the final episodes of “666 Park Avenue,” it didn’t extend the same courtesy to edgy sitcom “Don’t Trust the B---- in Apartment 23.” It canceled the show after airing 11 episodes of its second season. Eight remaining episodes remain unaired, although it did post them to ABC.com and Hulu for a time. The episodes are still available for purchase from Apple’s iTunes.

Resources: 

“Do No Harm” page on Wikipedia.
NBC’s official “Do No Harm” website.
“666 Park Avenue” page on Wikipedia.
“Don’t Trust the B---- in Apartment 23” page on Wikipedia.


1 comment:

Mon Endroit Préféré" said...

I happen to watch both Do No Harm and 666 Park Avenue. I have to admit 666 had a great start and somewhere in between the script failed and I was noticing the signs of trouble. I was hoping the writers would fix that and was surprised it was cancelled and was glad NBC decided to bring back the last 2 (I think) episodes to wrap up the show. Still didn't understand the ending of how they were father and daughter but oh well.

DO NO HARM. I hated the first episode. I didn't like Steven Pasquale and hated the Lena Solis character (not the actor Alana). But, what I enjoyed in episode 1 was the mysterious relationship between Jason, Ian and Olivia so I decided to watch a 2nd episode.

Well, to cut long story short. I was not surprised that it got cancelled after 2 episodes. Didn't miss it. I was surprised that it aired again and was happy to continue watching to find out what happens between Ian and Olivia. I got addicted from Episode 3 not only to the script but also to Steven's Pasquale and his ability to convince me that Ian and Jason are not Steven Pasquale but rather three very different people.

Got totally addicted to the Ian/Olivia storyline. I think the girl who played Olivia is a damn good actor and I was really wanting Jason to fall in love with her. By episode 3 I hated Dr. Solis. I found her utterly boring, controlling, meddling and irritating. I think Alana should sue the writers for penning such a weak character! Every time I saw her near Jason or talking about Jason I wanted to physically harm her (yes, I felt that strongly against her).

Anyway, my blood pressure is back to normal now that I don't have to be subjected to Dr. Solis but I am sad that the show is cancelled because I really got addicted to Ian's drama and even loved Jason and his relationship with Cole.

It was evident by episode 6 (how Ian met Olivia episode) that a lot of us loved Ian more. Well okay, I did so while sad to see Jason was not real, I was happy that the writers left us with the hope that Ian would wake up, go find Olivia and Cole and maybe have a future.

I would have continued watching Do No Harm thanks to Steven Pasquale's stellar performance. In fact, this was my first 'sighting' of him (or at least he didn't leave an impression when I watched Over/Under last year or so). This time however, he did and I actually sought out episodes of Rescue Me to watch Steven as Garrity. Loved it! Loved Do No Harm!!! Good luck to all the actors.