Profit (televised series)

Profit is a American Televised series , in a pilot of 90 minutes and seven 45 minutes episodes, created by John McNamara and David Greenwalt and whose only four episodes were diffused between the 8 and the April 29th 1996 on the network FOX. In France, the entirety of the series was diffused starting from the June 23rd 1997 on Jimmy.

A box DVD gathering the eight episodes, as well as no-claims bonus and a booklet, is available at Paramount.

Synopsis

Jim Profit is an employee lately promoted of Gracen & Gracen ( G&G ), a multinational of which some of its principal leaders have only few ethical in their community activities. That does not afflict Profit, which employs methods even more extreme (blackmail, corruption, extortion…) to carry out its ambitions.

On its way, it must face in particular with Joanne Meltzer, it responsible for the internal safety, which will do all to uncover it as with some other being wary employees whose Jim Profit covets the station.

Distribution

Adrian Pasdar (VF: Guy Hatter) : Jim Profit, assistant editor of acquisitions at Gracen & Gracen
LISA Zane (VF: Maïk Darah) : Joanne Meltzer, person in charge of safety interns
Sherman Augustus: Jeffrey Sykes, lawyer of the firm Gracen & Gracen
LISA Blount: Roberta “Bobbi” Stokowski, mother-in-law of Jim Profit
LISA Darr (VF: Francoise Dasque) : Gail Koner, secretary of Walters Jack, then of Jim Profit
Keith Szarabajka (VF: Patrick Floersheim) : Charles Henry “Chaz” Gracen, chairman of Gracen & Gracen and wire of the founder of the company
Jack Gwaltney: Pete Gracen, brother of Chaz, director of Gracen & Gracen , which aspires to the place of his/her brother
Allison Hossack: Nora Gracen, woman of Pete Gracen
Scott Paulin (VF: Jean-Luc Kayser) : Walters jack, president of acquisitions at Gracen & Gracen
Jennifer Hetrick: Elizabeth Gracen Walters, woman of Walters Jack and cousin of Chaz Gracen, decorator

Episodes

Comments

Jim Profit does not have two personalities, even if it gives the impression of it. True genius deeply Psychopathe, Profit is irreproachable in public while it sets up machiavelic strategies to arrive at its ends. In other words, it built a " façade" socially very acceptable but does not show any remord in the machinations which it sets up to achieve its goals. It is however very conscious of that and assumes completely it, but it shows a total contempt for the suffering which it can cause with the other human beings, replacing the concepts of " to some extent; bien" and of " mal" by those of " gagner" or " perdre".

One thus should not confuse its operation with that of a Schizophrène or a multiple Personnalité. Contrary to a psychotic, Jim Profit is not at all in rupture with reality. He does not destroy either itself. And it on the contrary is very well adapted to a very competitive environment as that of the high finance such as it is described in the series. With condition of course of making the saving in all kinds of human feelings and in particular of the importance of others as anybody. What would not be the case of a Psychotique.

It is not besides surely a chance if the authors of the series chose a almost perfect Psychopathe, like model of an anti-hero succeeding perfectly in the business world. One can see there a strong critic of capitalism supporting a subtle and inhuman violence in the human relations like possible way of an easy success (at the material level it and capacity), even if the authors defend themselves some.

Profit is resulting from a very modest family and one understands through the episodes that his/her alcoholic father had chosen to give him for education and truth television. Thus, the Jim young person passed his childhood 24:00 on 24 front the TV locked up in a paperboard G&G, his father throwing the remainders of the meals to him to nourish it. After being itself rebelled and makes burn the family home, Jim changes name and decides to draw advantage from the wheels of capitalism.

He then becomes a framework shining and filled with ambitions, of an exemplary courtesy, which goes up within a multinational: Gracen & Gracen . Jim is also a man deeply dishonest person, ready with very to arrive at his ends (blackmail, corruption, intimidation), which sleep with his/her mother-in-law and sleeps in a paperboard posed in a secret part of its splendid apartment. At the same time monstrous and terribly human, this Richard III with the last disorder delivers to us his vision without concession of the capitalist world, of which it uses and misuses to arrive at his ends and to apply his own code of conduct. To the wire of the episodes, one realizes that it can also make the good to achieve its goals, this moderating the side “malefic” of Profit and clarifying its true ambitions: safeguard of the company considered as its family ( Gracen & Gracen, has family company in a strict sense here).

Profit belongs to these UFO televisual which marked the spirits in spite of a very modest public success. Impetus in April 1996 on Fox (whereas the chain is strong success of X-Files, at the borders of reality ), the series very causes several complaints of the televiewers shocked by the “badly-thinking” tone of the series (a very marked scene of the pilot episode, where one sees his mother embracing it passionately, saw an immediate fall of the spectators). The results of audience however remain weak and one should not any more for the chain to cancel the series after only three diffused episodes. Profit stops whereas six additional episodes were already produced.

In France, the series arrives in 1997 on the Jimmy chain, which into diffuse integrality of world exclusiveness. The Americans will never discover the new episodes, but the series will keep despite everything the regard of many critics and professionals. The two creators of Profit will not have besides any evil to again work on several series. David Greenwalt on Buffy against the vampires and Angel , while John McNamara will work on Loïs and Clark and will create the series Fastlane (which was it also cancelled after one complete season).

The diffusion on Jimmy was followed of an interview with the scenario writers of the series and the main actor, indicating that they had as a project to direct the series towards the political conquest if the diffusion had not been stopped. Profit would have destroyed the career of a senator and would have pushed Pete Gracen to be arised to its seat. Thus, Jim Profit would have continued to exert his art, to handle people in slides. What he explains in voice-over in an episode: That which thinks that to dominate others is a science misleads. It is Article. .

This series has from the start a frozen and sulfurous tone:

frozen on the vision of the life in company and the capitalist system in general
with regard to the family of Jim Profit: it kills his father and sleep with his mother-in-law who is with the current of the murder and Profit threat all to reveal if it does not do what she wishes.

This so specific tone (as well as the fact that the hero falls on competitors which give him wire with retordre) is the principal dramatic interest of the series. The pseudo-technological part (internal network of the multinational and other microphone-chip ) having aged well today.

Curiously, Profit , on the eight turned episodes, treats much more than it does not appear the topic of the family to with it. Gracen & Gracen is a family company besides. And the last counterpart of the series shows it well: When smoke is dissipated and that one thinks of it well, there are only three things which count. Its faith, its uprightness and its family. . With the name Gracen registered in capital letters on a pillar at the entry of the family home.

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