Just Sit Right Back and You’ll Hear a Tale…

Unless you passed out in high school literature class you probably know the story of Robinson Crusoe and his twenty-eight year adventure shipwrecked on a tropical island. The classic Daniel Defoe novel was originally published in 1719 and in 2008, has found a new form in our post-Pirates of the Caribbean landscape. Just a few years ago, basing a weekly hour long network television series on swashbuckling pirates, wild natives and dense Caribbean jungles probably would’ve been laughed out of the pitch meeting. These days however, a wide open story like Crusoe might be a really tempting escape from killer robots, weird fairy tale-like narratives and badly acted 80s remakes. Unfortunately, poor writing, bad acting and cheap filmmaking keep it from working out that way.

Crusoe is a British castaway on a small Caribbean island. His only companions are a dog and an escapee from the clutches of cannibals who Crusoe calls Friday. Crusoe and Friday live a solitary life (no homo) alone on the island. A band of scurvy pirates arrive on the island in search of a legendary canon made of gold. Funny thing about these pirates, unlike Robin and Friday they have rotten teeth. I guess they haven’t benefited from the fine dental care that Robin has developed on his deserted island. The pirates are none too happy to see the shipwrecked protagonist. Figuring they could use his knowledge of the island to help them find the gold canon, they capture him. As we learn, Crusoe is the a bamboo and palm tree version of McGuyver and catching him is no simple task as he escapes several times using booby traps and his own guile. Throughout the show Crusoe has various flashbacks to his pre-shipwrecked life. Robin lost his mother at a very early age and he and his father became indebted to a mysterious godfather who will most certainly have some impact on the show as time goes on. We also get to see Robin’s lost love, who he spends countless moments pining for throughout the show. Its certainly important to show Robin’s memories of the life he lost, but at some point it just became tedious.

Back on the island, after outwitting the pirates and their new Spanish accomplices (I thought this island was deserted), Robin and Friday become trapped in the Swiss family Robinson tree house they live in together (no homo). Once again using his superior knowledge of twine and gunpowder, Robin and Friday beat back the hoard that suddenly want to kill him. This moment makes no sense at all. The pirates wanted to use Robin’s knowledge of the island to find their buried treasure, what good would killing him serve? They’d only be assured of never finding the treasure. This is only one of the several times during the program when I wondered if the writers even bothered to pay attention to the dreck they were kicking out.

By the end of the special two hour launch Robin and Friday are once again trapped in paradise and its going to be fascinating to see how the writers are going to crank out scripts for this program. Are they going to have pirates landing every week Gilligan’s Island style? Are Robin and Friday going to battle the elements alone? Why would we watch that? The concept of the show is a good one, the story the show is based on is a classic, but the execution is an absolute train wreck. Poor acting, ridiculous situations and a script that made no sense were the hallmarks of the opening of Crusoe. Its hard for me to see how this one is going to get any better in the weeks to come.