The Pretender ‘Pilot’: The Hunt Begins

During the height of the X-Files mania in the mid-1990s, networks were throwing out ambitious dramatic pilots with wildly mysterious conspiracies and flawed protagonists. The Pretender was among these, premiering on NBC in September of 1996, introducing us to the Centre and the mysteries swirling around Jarod. Four seasons and two tele-movies later, the story remains incomplete (although there was an ending written five years ago), but the show is still a fascinating study in its mix of dark humor, government conspiracy, and deeply emotional drama. It’s drier, wittier, and in subtle ways, a lot darker than much of the other material in its genre in the mid-1990s, and it suffered in the ratings for (never finishing higher than #59 in the rankings, in its second season).

I remember The Pretender fondly, being one of the first shows I ever watched on a weekly basis growing up, and when it went off the air, also became one of the first things I ever talked about on internet message boards, going online to homemade fan sites on my webTV and chatting on discussion forums about the dense, emotional mythology at the show’s core. So I might be a little biased in saying this, but in my opinion, The Pretender‘s pilot is a fucking masterpiece of an opening hour, building an immaculate foundation on an ingenious premise that seamlessly mixed serialized drama with crime procedural.

First off, it does a fantastic job dropping in bits of historical information about its world and its characters, masterfully toeing the line between revealing and mysterious. In 1963, a shady corporation known as the Centre raised a boy named Jarod (Michael T. Weiss, in his signature role) for 30 years, harnessing his genius to execute ‘simulations’, the results of which were sold to various clients to horrific results. In 1996, Jarod escapes from the Centre and spends his life on the run, using his ability to ‘pretend’ to keep one step ahead of the agents following him all while trying to figure out what happened to his family and avenge others who were wronged in life, like he was.

Every episode finds Jarod assuming a number of created identities to discover the truth behind various tragedies; in ‘Pilot’, its about a boy who was paralyzed after a drunk doctor botched his surgery and covered up the mistake. Using his skills to emulate any profession (since he’s spent 30 years pretending to do all those jobs), he discovers the truth while ‘working’ at the hospital, helping an old lady take a shit and scaring the hell out of the bad guys (head of surgery and Dr. Drunky) in the process. The plot itself obviously tries to pull in some of that ER audience from back in the day, and while most of it is predictable network dramatic stuff – there’s a nurse involved in the cover-up, a former crack addict who doesn’t want her past outed, plus emotional piano-filled scenes with the kid in the wheelchair – it serves as a revealing introduction into the real Jarod, the guy behind all the pretending.

It frames Jarod in a number of different lights: when he’s with the old lady, giving her herbal tea and showing off his Greek skills, he’s empathetic and caring. So caring in fact, that at one point she grabs him and asks him “Who are you?”, and the scared look he answers her with explains volumes about the pain and uncertainty underneath the slightly awkward, almost robotic person imitating someone else. The compelling thing about Jarod is that he can become anybody in the world… except himself. He doesn’t know his family, he has no friends, and since he’s been pretending to be other people for 30 years in a lab, he doesn’t know who he is.

That’s the bridge between the case-of-the-week and the overarching story of the series, which is a little more in the background here in the pilot than it will be in later shows. There’s a lot to learn about the Centre and its inhabitants, and we get but a mere glimpse of them here. I always forget that Broots wasn’t a character at the beginning of the show, and the absence of his presence (instead we get some cardboard cutout named ‘Sally’ who works in the shady computer rooms) felt weird. But even without him, the show establishes one of its best dynamics in Miss Parker (Andrea Parker of ER and Desperate Housewives, in the role of a career) and Sydney (Carnivale‘s Patrick Bachau), who are really the highlight of the opening episode.

The writers do such a great job establishing both their characters and their relationship: Sydney views Miss Parker as an over-hardened, dangerous woman, and she views him as a weird mix between Dr. Frankenstein and June Beaver who runs experiments on kids and then feels bad for them after. They both view Jarod in different lights: Miss Parker sees him as wild lab animal who represents a rung up the career ladder, and for Sydney, Jarod is really the son he never got to have, a way to reconcile all the terrible things he’s created through Jarod’s simulations.

There are a lot of other things hinted to in their scenes: that Miss Parker and Jarod know each other very well (and Syndey, with his line to Miss Parker about ‘you were such a sweet little girl’), that Sydney might’ve had a hand in Jarod’s initial escape from the Centre, and of course, the reveal at the end that Jarod’s parents were killed in a plane crash 30 years ago, like he’d been told. Of course, this doesn’t even begin to peel away the conspiracy onion that comes into play through the first season, but there’s only so much a show can do in its pilot, and much of Miss Parker’s background is left out to be brought into the fold as the season progresses – and without giving anything away, it’s when the show starts to really dig its nails into her back story that the show hits its stride.

The Pretender is a show in the mold of any procedural, but its ability to become any procedural (thanks to Jarod’s different career and case every week) and maintain its emotional core, integrating bits of action, mystery, and mythology-infused drama into every hour is what made it such a fantastic show. Killer cast, awesome and sometimes awesomely-cheesy 1990s soundtrack, an introduction with a throaty voiceover… it really had it all.

Grade: A

Other thoughts/observations (I have a lot, since I spent most of the review explaining what made the series awesome, not the pilot):

– great guest stars in the first episode: Stephen Toblowsky, Peter Michael Goetz, and Lilyan Chauvin as the old Greek woman (she also plays an Italian grandmother as Grandma Tribbiani on Friends). and let’s not forget the connection to LOST: the nurse is none other than L. Scott Caldwell, who we all remember as Rose.

– one of the subtle things I enjoy about The Pretender is how disturbed its willing to paint Jarod. He’s so mad about the faceless people who took him from his family that he enacts his rage fantasies out against equally cruel people in society. He does some dark shit to get those people to reveal the truth, and there are certain unhinged qualities to Jarod that don’t paint him as the beautiful hero some might think he is.

– this episode also establishes some of its quirky habits here: the red books, the weird girl riding her tricycle down the Centre hallway, Miss Parker’s smoking… and of course, Jarod’s obsession with Pez and ice cream. The revolving ‘what child toy is Jarod into this week’ was never my favorite, but when he’s trying to use his intelligence to comprehend things kids just don’t care about, it’s amusing as hell (“Do they whip air into it? It’s delicious!”)

– Miss Parker Line of the Week: “I did a lot of frat boys in college”, her response to Sydney inquiring into her knowledge of Greek mythology.

– some might call Weiss’s portrayal of Jarod robotic, but there’s an awkwardness to it that feels authentic to a character in his position, and the way he can capture emotion in his face is remarkable to watch in a number of scenes.

– it’s funny how much mystery there is about the Centre in this episode, simply because its merely a fraction of expansive back story to the organization.

– simulations mentioned in the episode: 118, the outrig sim, 27, 16, 42… I’m curious if any of these will pop up throughout the series, and will be keeping tabs on this.

– there’s only one show I think The Pretender can be compared to, even though they’re vastly different in content: LOST. It’s about flawed people in unfamiliar places, trying to reconcile their pasts as they redefine who they are, all surrounded by a deep, complex history. And that’s why they are both awesome.

what fond memories do you have of the first episode? What did you think of the review? Feel free to leave your thoughts/comments below, and stop back next Thursday to talk about ‘Every Picture Tells A Story’ and ‘Flyer’.