Profit--Articles

This came from the Detroit News. It's available at http://detnews.com/menu/stories/42971.htm

April 8, 1996
Wealthy anti-hero pays off in Fox drama
By Michael McWilliams
Detroit News Television Critic

Every episode of Profit, a snazzy new Fox series, ends with an image so eye-opening in its dramatic authenticity you blink twice. What is it? Won't tell. But be prepared to glimpse the pathological seeds of American business.

Premiering as a two-hour pilot at 8 tonight on Channel 2 in Detroit, before beginning as a one-hour show at 9 Mondays, Profit gets at something chilly in the air right now about love and trust, about ambition and greed.

Set in the sleek corporate offices of a Procter & Gamble-ish "family company," and narrated by a protagonist whose voice sounds like Charlie Sheen having phone sex, Profit stars Adrian Pasdar as Jim Profit, 28, a suave sociopath who makes O.J. Simpson look like the poster boy for mental health.

Crossing How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying with Sybil, Profit has Profit dispatching obstacles to the top with serial-killing cool while dispensing aphorisms that mix Dale Carnegie and Oprah. "When you want someone to love you, open your heart," purrs Profit in robotic voiceover. "When you want someone obsessed with you, close it." Among Profit's victims are: a blueblood CEO (Keith Szarabajka) and his soused brother (Jack Gwaltney); a love-starved wife (Allison Hossack) and a weak-willed secretary (Gail Koner); a haunted sleuth (Lisa Zane) and a trashy stepmother (Lisa Blount), who's hooked on junk in more ways than one.

When he destroys an enemy, Profit calls him up on his computer -- virtual reality-style -- and blows him into a thousand splintery pieces. Though it lacks the emotional texture of The Godfather Part II, Profit never descends to the bathos and pretension of L.A. Law. That's yesterday's business news. Profit, superbly negotiated by Pasdar, is an up-to-the-minute anti-hero, with the icy hotness of an Alanis Morissette song. Profit is one jagged little pill.