Debuting in 1996, "Profit" only aired for four episodes. I must admit, I, like most people, missed the show’s original run, but it was recently released on DVD. Having heard rumors about the show’s weird premise, I checked it out recently.
I wasn’t disappointed.
The show centered on Pasdar’s Profit, a good-looking ambitious businessman rising through the ranks of the corporate giant Gracen & Gracen. Profit is charming, smart… and a total psychopath.
In the course of the show’s two-hour pilot, he blackmailed an executive secretary into giving him confidential files, tricked one exec into revealing information that almost cost him his job and got another exec canned for violations that Profit committed.
Now, in today’s television landscape, dominated by complex characters such as Tony Soprano and Vic Mackey of “The Shield,� that doesn’t sound so bad. But I’ve just scratched the surface.
He also turned out to be having an affair with his stepmother and eventually tracked down and killed his abusive father.
Yet, what made the show truly inspired and daring wasn’t Profit’s oedipal tendencies. No, its true genius was that “Profit� was a television show that condemned television!
You see, Profit’s dad was a monster whose idea of child-rearing was to put his son in a cardboard box with a hole cut out of it. The hole faced the TV set, so Profit’s only interactions as a child were with the boob tube.
And he grew up to be a nut. No wonder the TV-viewing public didn’t embrace the show.
Watching “Profit� on DVD (which includes five unaired episodes), you realize how tame most television is, including the shows that pitch themselves as “daring� or “edgy.�
Yes, “The Sopranos� broke new ground by asking us to empathize with a pack of murderers. But, while those guys may be killers, they’re human. They have families. They have feelings. They have souls.
Not Jim Profit. Here’s a character completely detached from the human experience. The most he feels for anyone is a sort of distant admiration. And Pasdar was brilliant in the role.
Most actors would have felt compelled to make the character likable. But Pasdar didn’t care about that. He delved into the dark recesses of this sick character. And, by refusing to compromise him to make him more sympathetic, Pasdar made Profit weirdly likable.
Oh, he’s a monster and impossible to root for. But you can’t take your eyes off him.
He was surrounded by an equally wonderful supporting cast. My favorite is Lisa Darr as the blackmailed secretary, Gail, who starts as Profit’s victim, manipulated into being his accomplice, and evolves into a somewhat willing sidekick, strangely enjoying how his schemes test her brains and resourcefulness.
The show is just genius, and it’s too bad that we didn’t get see more of Jim Profit and his evil scheming. But thankfully, we can view him on DVD in all of his sick glory. So go rent or buy it, and prepare to be shocked out of your complacency.