Created By

by Richard Matheson

  demands

  When Alan was asked who should direct the remainder of “The Mercenary” pilot, which by now was eliciting unhappy attention from the network’s Zeus fleet, his mind stalled.

  Then, the words left his head and pulled in front of an idea he’d never seen. “I wanna do it,” he told Jordan. “I know what I want. I can bring in the look and the budget. The network loves the dialogue and the attitudes and the whole approach. Tell Andy I wanna take a crack.”

  He didn’t know where the words were coming from. He’d never wanted to direct before. Why now? All he knew was he wanted to protect his creation, as a mother would her unborn child; to keep the pilot away from the meddlesome Xeroxes most pilot directors called “style.”

  Even Jordan, in his usual esthetic trough, had warned that for-hire, “astigmatic hack” types would make “The Mercenary” look dreary and narcotic. And the new breed of film-school poseurs was as bad. Pimply auteurs with their wet streets and sultry colors, fiberglassing every frame; drowning the pilot in narcissistic gem-shades.

  It was just shinier crap.

  Either way, Alan figured critics kicked you in the balls and no one watched. He knew it needed more.

  But knowing all that and being able to explain why he’d thought to direct were different. The words felt like foreign places; ideas you needed shots to get to. Yet something was pushing him to demand his chance behind the camera.

  To everyone’s surprise, when Andy heard Alan wouldn’t stay with the show unless he directed the pilot, he agreed. He viewed the work Hector finished, felt all the underwater footage was usable, and that some of the wide shots of the red-light bar could be cut into a new sequence between Barek and Garris.

  He also felt Alan should get a single credit, in order to keep Hector’s suicide a nontainting presence on the pilot. The press would eat it up if they got hold of the whole blood-soaked mess. He told Alan he’d pull some strings with Hector’s attorney who owed Andy “favors.”

  “What kind of favors?” Alan had asked and Andy’s dimples darkened.

  “And don’t worry. Hector messed with every film he ever directed. It just caught up with him.” Andy played with the words, deluded into thinking he’d coined a new idea. “Or … maybe he caught up with him.”

  Alan thanked him and wondered aloud why Hector had committed suicide in such a horrible, public way.

  Andy thought it over. Yawned a little and nibbled on fresh, office popcorn. “Well,” he said, loving to speculate on the macabre, “if you know his work, Hector never could stage a scene without going over the top. Good news is public will eat this up. Whole perverse aura about the show now. Can’t buy P.R. this strong. Guess Hector finally did us a favor.”

  And then he had to take a call from Judd Hirsch.

  Alan hung up and closed his eyes, not able to forget the look on Hector’s face when the gun garaged in his mouth. The second or two before he fired, he’d looked right at Alan. At that exact moment, Alan had instantly seen Hector’s wounding of Bloom as coming from rage, and the wounding of Bo Bixby from a simple desire to protect himself. But firing a bullet into his own brain …

  The way Hector had looked at Alan as he squeezed the trigger for the final time … something about it was very weird.

  Like it hadn’t been his idea.

  p.o.v.

  Alan watched orchestrated explosions below, match-heading on Mexican jungle. As he peered through the camera lens, the fictive Viet Nam burned prebudgeted, perfectly arranged annihilation and palm trees went up like bombs. Smoke ballooned into sky, and rented choppers dropped movie napalm as Alan had his director of photography zoom in, slowly, on flaming huts and frightened oxen.

  He stared down at earth, aflame, day-scale villagers scattering and screaming, his helicopter vista craning higher. Then, he gestured for the pilot to swoop lower and yelled into his own walkie-talkie, telling his assistant director, on the ground, to tell the extras what to do.

  As they did exactly what he said, delayed in their response time by mere seconds, Alan was aware of becoming calm. He was in the helicopter, photographing A. E. Barek’s P.O.V. shots of jungle assault and strangely, all memories and sensations of mortal limit were gone.

  Lifted.

  He felt peace; transcendence. Putting together a life for Barek calmed him. Getting the authentic contours just right. The textured history. Experiences. Scarred emotions; triumphs and traumas. Details of a life that didn’t even exist. Yet, as he filmed, committing it all to emulsion, he realized it was almost no different from the real thing.

  Except for genuine danger, lurking near, everything at this moment looked and felt identical. The shame and glory were living things. Though he was on location, just south of Puerto Vallarta, and the whole cast and crew were staying at a beachfront Hilton, he felt he was in a helicopter, over Viet Nam, on a search-and-destroy, the enemy burning and screaming below.

  The physical and visual sensations of it all were so close to being real, he was beginning to understand what directors were talking about; setting the vision. Sculpting reality. Getting lost in the dream.

  Control.

  A.E. Barek’s highly specific, imaginary world was everywhere Alan looked and he smiled to himself, unprepared for the impact it was having on him.

  It was like he’d created life.

  act two

  ten weeks later

  reviews

  LOS ANGELES TIMES

  Folks, bear with me here. This will be slightly more than my usual review and a bit less than Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.

  I’ll try not to sound like my head is about to explode off my neck, but I’ll be honest with you, I can’t hold in lava this hot any longer. They pay me to be objective but beyond a certain point, and today I’m there, a thermometer couldn’t be objective.

  Basic truth, so let’s get it out of the way: TV ain’t Bach. Never was. I’ll swear on my two-year-old-daughter’s healthy future, it never will be. It’s just rock and roll, I guess, one way or the other. Just a glow-riff.

  Our adored morphine-boxes are the only tubes we have in our homes that squeeze us, and indeed recent findings, according to a 13-year study, are that the more you watch TV, the worse you feel. It sort of cremates your reason for wanting to go on, you know? Am I getting through or has your head turned into a test pattern with hair? I can relate. I just keep sinking deeper into my Barcalounger, praying my goddamn Sony will blowup and be taken away while I still have an original thought left it hasn’t hawked a major lugie on.

  Want to feel your piles swell? Try this one on:

  The study found identifiable relationships between changes in a viewer’s mood and the number of hours they spend watching. It further discovered that the longer a person watched the hell-square the more drowsy, bored, sad, lonely, and hostile the viewer would become.

  Bottom line, Faustkateers? How about something like it can be argued using TV habitually is no worse than or, importantly, no better than habitually using alcohol or other mood-altering substances. And they didn’t even factor in the newest obscenity to roar into the currents of American viewing. We won’t even mention the network, but suffice to say it is three simple little letters. Emphasis on simple.

  I’m talking about “The Mercenary,” kids.

  Have you seen this one?

  Forget “The A-Team.” It was Othello.

  Scratch “Hunter.” “Hunter” was My Left Foot.

  This new, recently debuting series is quite literally the worst thing I have ever seen, been degraded by, had to review, or felt depressed and horrified by in my entire career as a critic and/or human being, depending on your opinion of my actual lineage.

  I wish I could just say it’s more bad, stun-gun television and leave it at that. I wish I could just say it is the most horrible thing I have ever witnessed and then politely call a cab and get out of your hair. But it ain’t Christmas, I don’t owe anybody powerful enough to fire me a favor and my parents raised
me to call ’em like I see ’em. Especially when what I’m calling doesn’t just elicit contempt but actually drops about fifty pounds of nausea into your gut and leaves you writhing.

  Creator Alan White can only be thankful he didn’t grow up in Salem or he would currently be speaking to us while tied to a very firm stake, going up in flames. How this man, who has been involved in other, classier projects over the years and who I once favorably reviewed prior to what can only be viewed as a complete nervous breakdown, could attach his name to this inhumane, sadistic horror is beyond me.

  This isn’t just embarrassing. This is the death of taste in America. This is organized, professionally broadcast hatred, ugliness and simple-minded thinking at its most base and unimaginative.

  Did I say unimaginative?

  Maybe I’m being too hard on “The Mercenary.”

  They have managed to figure out immensely clever, if not painfully obvious, ways to show women in states of undress and/or to splash blood on almost every square inch of this unendurable hour of sensationalistic sewage.

  But I speak before I think. Let us reevaluate. This isn’t sewage. It’s different. Sewage is going somewhere.

  If this series is allowed to continue, I question how decent values can remain undrowned by the blood and vicious poison Alan White and his “breakthrough” series are dispensing like so much tampered Kool-Aid.

  I’m gonna try and kill this one, dear readers. Because if I don’t, the next series that will follow on the wastrel coattails of this one will be the end of civilized life. And you gotta draw the line somewhere.

  Consider this a line, Mr. White.

  HOUSTON DAILY PILOT

  While I admit to a certain shame in admitting it, the latest action/adventure offering to hit the air, Alan White’s “The Mercenary,” is a guilty pleasure.

  There’s no denying its self-conscious efforts to resemble the tough violence and sexuality of its bigger brother feature films, which have been doing this kind of thing for a decade. There’s no denying the harsh ferocity either. It’s there. You can’t miss it, even if you’re in the other room, outside, or even down the block visiting friends.

  This one is so overwhelming in production values and genuine power, you can probably hear it when you’re watching a whole other channel.

  The lead, played by Jake Corea, is so disturbingly alienated and savage in the role of A. E. Barek, a nearly sociopathic soldier of fortune, we only scantly suspect his pathos when he stares at the ceiling of his little hotel room, in the dingy gloom of Black’s Hotel, and flashes back to when he had some semblance of a life. A wife. A child. Now long gone. He is a deserted island, floating in a sea of despairing emptiness. He helps others, when hired, and as his defenders say, “does the job. Whatever the cost.”

  But this isn’t Stallone puppet opera.

  There’s something more here. Genuine angst. A darkness and intelligence that seeps between the extraordinary violence and shocking carnality.

  This is blood and nudity like it’s never been seen on television. There is little in the way of compromise or discretion. It all hangs out and it feels real.

  And that’s what I’m responding to.

  A frankness and a candid potency.

  Make no mistake, “The Mercenary” is a jolting, almost inconceiveably tough step for series television. But like the best drama and the most memorable tales of history, this one has substance under all the flesh and explosions. There seems to be true suffering here. We can only assume Mr. White has known this world. These feelings. This sort of suffering. To his credit, he allows it to resonate and keep us fascinated at the same time.

  This one is going to redefine controversy, I suspect. But it’s the kind of controversy I welcome.

  SEATTLE TRIBUNE

  Beyond any level of crap the English language can accommodate. It extinguishes everything worth living for and celebrates pain. I enjoyed the commercials.

  Fr. WORTH OBSERVER

  Indefensible drivel. Don’t bother. Tune it out. Turn it off. Unplug the set and get a life.

  NEW YORK POST

  This one is impossible to categorize.

  There’s so much wrong and evil about it, it’s hard to simply dismiss. The networks are obviously so disoriented and frightened by the loss of their audience to cable, they’ve reached the stage of absolute vertigo. This series should never have been allowed where children might happen upon it.

  Had it remained a feature film or a made-for-cable project, perhaps it could be discussed on its own terms. But it is so wrongly positioned, available on network television, whoever’s watching the store is now willing to sell anything. However coarse. However debasing. However meticulous in its cruelty. Heaven forbid it does well.

  They should all be arrested for allowing this one. And by the way, where’s the FCC in all this? This is not just bad TV, it’s bad kharma. For god’s sake, don’t let your children see it. The world is terrible enough as is. We don’t need more converts.

  FAIRBANKS WATCHER

  Hey, maybe I’m a moron but I love this thing.

  It moves like a damn rocket. There’s babes wearing barely enough to floss with and pretty darn accurate sexual activity. I mean, what more could you ask for, other than some beer that isn’t imported and a good signal.

  Don’t miss it. History is getting made here. And it’s a lot more fun than the boring stuff they made us study in high school.

  NEW HAVEN DAILY

  Has America lost it’s mind?

  What next? Snuff movies? The “Dr. Mengele Variety Hour”? I thought you had to watch the news to see the terrible things going on out there.

  Well, now you have a second choice.

  Every Tuesday at ten o’clock. It’s called “The Mercenary” and it is beyond pitiful. It tries to pawn off a concept with so much mileage on it they should just pull it over and tow it away. But I wish I could report it as just one more hackneyed act of desperation on the part of the network.

  It’s too mean-spirited for that. It’s violent, gratuitously ridden with nudity and nearly explicit sexuality and the whole effort has a seedy, money-grubbing, sordid smell about it. I think the networks have finally lost it. They’re losing their audience and it’s making them all bend over a toilet to come up with new ideas.

  So, here’s the latest in a batch of vile junk whose single distinction is that it easily surpasses previous seasons of vile junk to the tune of a thousand.

  How the FCC can go along with this is the biggest mystery.

  If you like pornography, hang in there. They probably have something up their grimy sleeve for midseason replacements.

  God bless America.

  SARASOTA JOURNAL

  Finally something on TV we can sink our teeth into.

  The newest effort at a mix of reality TV and out-and-out entertainment is a doozy that won’t leave you asking for much except some bottled oxygen. This one will take your breath away.

  From the moment its throbbing titles begin, to the way the violence and bloodshed cannonade in peyote colors and angry camera angles, the whole show simply overpowers the senses. While there is admittedly much nudity and perhaps the argument could be made that it is an audience lure, it never feels wrong, false, or kite-tailed.

  Also it should be emphasized that not all the bodies shown are beautiful or perfect. Amid a fair share of Coppertone figures are hunched and crippled villagers, torn by shrapnel, clothing burned to reveal full frontal nudity. But anyone who finds this prurient or vaguely sexual is the one with the problem, not the series.

  I particularly admire the way creator and executive producer Alan White has woven in character eccentricity and a showman’s eye for wonderful scenes, commingling vulnerability of heart, with frayed and wounded spirits, against fiercely funny people.

  This may not be as good as it gets. But it’s getting there.

  Mr. White, I predict you are going to be a very rich man once this thing catches on. It’s simply wond
erful.

  Five stars.

  CHICAGO TIMES

  Forget your antacids and aspirins, somebody is going to have to hit you with a tranquilizer dart to get you through this one. Pretty bleak going here, America. Maybe there’s a rerun of “Three’s Company.” If so, do yourself a favor and see how John Ritter’s crotch is faring.

  overnights

  The Don Ho sun shone over the sleepy bay and everywhere you looked somebody was going into a coma. “You may as well spread pâté on me and throw me to the damn sharks … I’m dying here. I have no pulse. Go ahead, feel. Afraid to aren’t you?”

  Erica lanced Alan with a loving smile and he sighed, looking into burning sky. He was coming out of his skin.

  “Hey, how do you think it’s gonna do? But really … no bullshit.” His lids were shut, and he watched single cells canoe across his eyeballs. For a fleeting second, he could see Hector’s mind dripping down the screen; angry red wax.

  Erica’s sunglasses lifted, meaningfully. “It’s gonna be bigger than God, himself. Bigger than God’s furniture. All right? Will you stop?”

  Alan looked between his toes and watched green-blue water spreading like Italian ice over the black sand. It frothed and sizzled, then backed away, trailing itsy-bitsy bubbles. Miles off, Molokai stood, knee-deep in sparkling water; a post-leprous Eden.

  Maui was hot and breezy. Palms swayed like slow dancers and sailboats paced, rainbow cheeks billowing, yelping maniacs hanging off the side at self-destructive angles.

  At the sand’s edge, the Sheraton had a trio gargling Hawaiian ballads, skin like damp Cadbury bars. As the brochures swore, with ukelele adjectives, it was wall-to-wall perfection.