THBBM - Vincent Ventresca

Vincent Ventresca
We all know not to question a Hungry Roo, so we just begin to Bonzai...
2-8

"Sixty sunsets had I seen revolve on that perpendicular hill. The vision of the freedom of eternity was mine forever. The chipmunk ran into the rocks and a butterfly came out. It was as simple as that..."

- Jack Kerouac, "The Dharma Bums"
: Pazsaz.com just came out with it's listing of cancelled television shows for the 2001 - 2002 season. The list contains a few surprises (I sorta felt like The Tick was getting it's legs, and that Fox was going to stand by it for a while), but for the most part, the trees that were cut from the forest were the ones that you knew were going to fall anyways...
Emeril... Pasadena... Norm...
: One of these obvious choices though sorta saddened me. There's a show put out by the SciFi channel called The Invisible Man. It's been on for a few years; and has even made it into syndicated reruns, which they play here on weekends late at night.
When I'm awake.
: It's a goofy show. Basically there was a government project to design a way for a person to become invisible at will, creating the perfect tool for espionage, assassination, whatever. The result of the project was a "biosynthetic gland" that secrets a man-made hormone called "quicksilver" - which covers the bearers body, rendering him invisible (I know, but stick with me..) the twist is that the government needs someone to put the gland in, and of course no one wants it (because eventually the exposure drives you mad/kills you/makes you a republican - something bad that I don't remember). So in a classic TV twist, they take a criminal and make a deal with him - Let us put this thing inside of you and you won't go to jail.
: He agrees, becomes the invisible man, which in turn leads him on a series of wacky adventures in which he becomes a superhero of sorts, doing good when needed, protecting his friends, and dealing with the inevitable faults and pitfalls of being a walking science experiment.
: Did I mention this was a bad television show?
: The premise is too silly, and a number of the plots feel like they were retooled after being rejected by the producers of "Highlander the series" -- but.. It was my show.
: I can't count the number of times Kim has come out to the living room to ask what I was doing up so late, where I would reply:
: "Watching Invisible Dude.."

The actors who played the characters on the show really bought into the world they inhabited, which to me is one of the things that makes a television show worth watching. Just due to the fact that television shows force characters to live ONE SITUATION for a half hour every week for years and years means that the concept of a show is bound to get stale or contrived -- I mean, it's sort of inevitable that the plot starts to wear itself out.
: "How long was that MASH unit in Korea? Wasn't the Korean War shorter than that?"
"Doesn't it seem like Cliff and Norm are at Cheers all the time? Don't they have jobs?"
"You're telling me that Lois has NO IDEA that Clark Kent is Superman?"
"A talking car that helps solve crimes.. man, don't that beat all!"
: We get drawn into television shows for the concepts and the stories, but we stay for the characters. As a real life situation, Friends is so completely ridiculous that it's almost insulting to think that somewhere out there there's a network executive who honestly believes that 20/30 something people live like that. But over the years fans have come to enjoy being around the characters. They're like old buddies that call you up once a week to tell you something funny, dramatic, or action-packed that happened to them once..
: Reminds me of something Andrew and I were talking about recently.. something about how you have friends - people whom you connect with, grow with, love like family -- and then sometimes you make allies..
: Allies are those people who share circumstances with you; fight alongside you at work, take the same train every morning, go to the same places at the same times. You don't so much necessarily bond with them as much as you use your commonalities with them to help make situations you encounter go by smoother. Outside of those situations you find the connections often start to fade...
: I stay up late, It's not odd at all for me to find myself tooling around in the small hours every night. But on weekends, when I don't have to be anywhere the next day, it can get into the extremes. I like sleep as much as the next guy, but I've always been a night person. It's a great time to read, write, or just hang out and think about the world..
It's a solitary time, mostly.
: But over the years I've found myself taking on allies, bringing friends into the fold. Sometimes it's nice to have someone there, you know? On weekends, I found myself spending time with the quirky cast of this terribly bad science fiction show.
: I don't know -- the writers of the show never really took themselves too seriously, nor did they seem to mind the characters picking up little habits, or injecting inside jokes into the fold. And beyond everything else, I really got into the sort of sardonic style that actor Vincent Ventresca poured into the lead character. He's sort of a bumbling idiot when it comes to being a hero, but he's constantly quoting Shakespeare, Wilde, and Shaw.
Silly as that sounds, Ventresca found a way to make it human.: As with all good television shows (at least the way I see it) there was a theme running underneath the show's premise that at least to me held a lot of potential for exploration:
are there ways that people can be invisible that don't involve super science?
: The Invisible Man character is treated like a Guinea Pig in an experiment by the agency he works for, even as he "saves the world" time and time again. People whom he makes alliances with (partners, coworkers, etc.) will sometimes lay down their lives for him, but at other times seem to barely notice that he's anything other than a vessel for "gland."
: Something about getting into situations where you feel like who you are as a person is what gives you worth, only to find out that it's the job function you provide that people really appreciate..
: It's handled delicately, sometimes just in the pauses between the lines, or the looks in the characters eyes, but.. I don't know, they did a nice job of it. This silly sci-fi cops and robbers show that sometimes made me think about the way I'm seen in the world that surrounds me...
: I'm gonna miss it.
: The reruns will surely play for ages, and even if they don't -- another show with a hardly believable premise and a solid cast dedicated to bringing characters to life will come along. It always does. Before "The Invisible Man," I was watching something else late at night on weekends...
Friends, Allies. Allies... Friends.
: I don't know. Makes me think of the way currents and winds play together sometimes to make terrible, destructive storms - and at other times make beautiful days that you never want to see end.
: I mean, the wind blows and the tide rolls either way.

But when they get together...