NBC seemed to dig its “Thrillogy” lineup from the 1996-’97 season. “Dark Skies,” “The Pretender” and “Profiler” were housed under this umbrella title as dark, moody blends of action and adventure.
The concept night, patterned after the lighter “Must-See TV” Thursday night block of comedies, survived the beginning of this season when the canceled “Dark Skies” was replaced by “Sleepwalkers.” But that show only lasted a handful of weeks after its premiere last fall.
“TV Censored Bloopers,” which took “Sleepwalkers’ ” place, doesn’t have the same cachet of “Profiler” and “The Pretender,” so “Thrillogy” is dead.
But the stars of the two remaining series have a few other titles NBC could use to keep some of the mood “Thrillogy” conveyed.
“The `Duology,’ ” laughs “Pretender” lead Michael T. Weiss. Ally Walker, star of “Profiler,” chips in with ” `Duality,’. . .`Dualogy’, . . . `Scare-o-gy,’ I don’t know.”
Weiss and Walker said it didn’t seem right to push the shows under one umbrella, since each had distinctive styles. “I just don’t think you can lump television shows together,” Weiss said.
Walker thought it was “interesting” to market the evening as “the three ways of being thrilled.” But when “Dark Skies” and then “Sleepwalkers” didn’t work out, it became clear that fitting a program within the “Thrillogy” theme didn’t help the evening if the program didn’t click creatively and with the public. “I don’t know if it’s really going to work ever again,” adds Walker.
“Thrillogy” doesn’t have to be resurrected, because the two surviving shows do quite well without the theme umbrella.
“The Pretender,” airing at 8 p.m. Saturdays on WMAQ-Ch. 5, is an entertaining action series about a genius named Jarod (Weiss) who excels at any profession he takes on — cop, doctor, lawyer, race-car driver, fireman or pilot– and uses his abilities to help others.
“Profiler,” which follows at 9 p.m., is a compelling crime drama about federal officer Samantha Waters (Walker) who specializes in psychological profiles of murderers.
What makes the shows watchable is the continuing storylines that often are more interesting than the main story.
Jarod was snatched from his family as a child to live in a shadowy conclave called The Centre, where his talents were used to solve certain mysteries. (For example, he figured out how President John F. Kennedy was really assassinated.) He escaped from The Centre, which continues to hunt Jarod.. The Centre is a hotbed of secret intrigues, the main one involving Jarod’s tracker, Miss Parker (Andrea Parker), whose mother died mysteriously when she and Jarod were kids together at the Centre.
In “Profiler,” Sam Waters is stalked in each episode by a serial killer dubbed the Jack of All Trades. We hear his voice, but we never see his face.Jack, who killed Sam’s husband years before, is obsessed with her, but he always stays one step ahead of the task force Sam works for. Jack has menaced Sam’s friends, killed a loved one, and even captured her once; she wounded him this season.
“I think (`Pretender’ creators Steven Long Mitchell and Craig Van Sickle) really have discovered a unique hybrid of TV, . . . but it’s also become a blend of many different kinds of genres to become one new one,” said Weiss, who grew up in Northbrook and attended Glenbrook North High School.
Walker, a Tennessee native who has been acting for the last 10 years, praised creator Cynthia Saunders with setting up Jack as “this stalker who nobody saw. I mean, just think of the possibilities of that. You can kind of cut to somebody walking the street and not knowing who it was and they’d go, `Ohmigod, that’s Jack!’ And that’s what they’ve capitalized on.”
“Profiler” and “The Pretender” have survived “Thrillogy” because you want to root for the two magnetic lead characters.
Jarod is going through a second childhood because he never experienced childhood pleasures, such as eating junk food, while growing up in the Centre.
“We consciously made a choice that he’s still going to be naive on certain subjects, but he’s going to be much savvier in other areas,” said Weiss. At the same time, he said, Jarod is “highly dysfunctional . . . it’s great fun to play those darker moments, those private moments with Jarod when he’s really not a happy man. He hasn’t developed like other people have. I find the psychology of the character really fascinating.”
Meanwhile, Sam struggles to raise her young daughter while keeping an eye peeled at all times for Jack. Walker is philosophical about her character’s life of danger:
“I think Sam is just on her path. She’s in this struggle in her life, and she’s been dealt this hand that is not really fair . . .for some reason her life is hard, and it’s painful and it’s sad. But I think she’s trying to find the light. I think that that’s what everybody is doing.”
