As a child, one of my favorite movies was “Robinson Crusoe On Mars” (1964) with Paul Mantee. I would have loved to be his Friday. Please send him my regards! The film was shown periodically on the Million Dollar Movie, although I seriously doubt it made that much in its initial run, it was a guilty pleasure, filled with adventure, isolation, overcoming obstacles, and a homo-erotic sub-textual romance, which perfectly encapsulated my adolescent life. Note to self: check eBay for DVD. The original novel may be considered a chestnut by some, considering it was written in 1719, by Daniel Defoe, but it has stood the test of time, and is frequently revived in film, TV, theater, and animation. Robinson Crusoe was a potboiler in its day, one of the first best-sellers. Defoe in a brilliant marketing strategy penned the novel as his autobiography, an unlikely story, still the notion that a nobleman, an aristocrat, being reduced to despicable circumstances, and forced to live in men’s only world reads like the coded text for a great Oscar Wilde novel. But how is Robinson Crusoe relevant to today? It is seasonably cool. A brisk October breeze races down the caverns of Herald Square. Regretfully Olafur Eliasson waterfall installations were just dismantled here in New York as the latest promotional project went up, “Robinson Crusoe“…on Broadway. My attention is already peaked. This is NBC’s attempt to draw attention to one of its pet projects for the fall season. A voyeuristic tiki booth (fourth wall is removed) is situated directly across the street from mega-hit Mamma-Mia, which provides an interesting counterpoint for the tropical locale of the TV series. Both tourists and locals appear non-plussed as an attractive model (a Crusoe look-a-like) sits most of the day, pretending to be engaged in some bland domestic activity, and is available to pose with high-scholars visiting from the Mid-West, or overseas. However, one can pose with equal animation with the wax version of the Rock, or Samuel Jackson, at Madam Tussaud’s. As crass, and as extravagant as network TV can be, the installation still looks a bit more like Gilligan’s Island, think the Howell’s hut with shelled out coconut vases, a Rube Goldberg doorbell and you’ll get the drift. Why did anyone on Gilligan’s Island need a doorbell? Company didn’t call. Undaunted, NBC has been extravagant in lavishly setting up this 24/7 live-action interactive commercial for its newest TV series. I will give NBC “thumbs-up” for concept, but a “thumbs-down” for execution. To read more about the installation you can go directly to
to see for yourself.
What works against the installation is the intrusive flat screen TV in the Tiki booth with the continuous loop. A flat screen on a deserted island. This isn’t “Lost”. If you have seen the TV commercials for NBC’s newest action-adventure-romance, you have seen the very handsome, Philip Winchester, in gorgeously tight leather chaps, equestrian boots, and torn suede blouse outrun musket-toting pirates, who at first glance look more like “The Pirates of the Caribbean” stand-in’s. Robinson Crusoe, swings from vines from the old Tarzan lot, flies over exploding cannon balls, and dodges poisonous spears. For a protagonist who is traditionally depicted as stranded alone on an uncharted island this new Robinson Crusoe sure gets a lot of company, pirates, pirate hunters, mutineers, indigenous natives, Spaniards in search of the New World, cannibals, giants, Amazons, and ghosts from the past, everyone stops by except me. RSVP cruises not withstanding.
Winchester with his scruffy beard, eyes almost as blue as Paul Newman’s, glistening sweat, and six-pack set of abs that makes Calvin Klein models seem scrawny, his sinewy physique, dimpled cheeks, (facial) resourcefulness, he can weave baskets, and rig water to run up to this tree house, he’s an alpha-male, a classic hunter-gatherer, a brooding intense loner, whose physical agility supersedes some of the wild animals on the island, yet he still manages to have a sense of humor, and makes witty asides without appearing effete or dishy, and the producers even threw in a refined upper crust Hugh Grantish accent. Robinson Crusoe is tailored to become a lonely viewers dream come true. The next best thing to a blind date. Winchester may need not have to act, he is prettier than all the boys on “Gossip Girls” put together. What more could a person want? The show airs on “Friday” night” well, that is almost clever. Anyway, Robinson Crusoe appears to have stepped off the cover of a Harlequin Romance, or a hackneyed script writers idea of fusion in this “Lost” meet’s “Survivor“, meets “MacGyver” meets “Treasure Island” meets “Zena” meets “Tarzan” meets “Mutiny On The Bounty” series, I’ll pass, I’d rather wait for Netflix to offer “Robinson Crusoe on Mars”.
