In today's column, I review NBC's "The Philanthropist," which I enjoyed a lot more than I expected, thanks largely to James Purefoy:Teddy Rist, the hero of NBC's summer drama series "The Philanthropist," is described in the publicity materials as a billionaire vigilante. This job description is less unusual than it sounds at first. After all, you could pin the same tag on Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark, Scrooge McDuck and possibly Ross Perot.Please forgive the Shakespeare joke; tight deadlines sometimes lead to obvious gags.
Rist doesn't have a utility belt, a suit of armor, a vault full of gold he can swim in, or presidential campaign experience, so he has to get by on charm. And, fortunately, Rist happens to be played by British actor James Purefoy, who showed in his performance as Marc Antony on HBO's "Rome" that he has more than enough charm to spare for friends, Romans, countrymen and even NBC viewers.
Not sure if this one's going to work its way into the regular blog rotation -- between the summer rewinds, ongoing stuff like "Nurse Jackie" and "Burn Notice," plus the debut of HBO's "Hung" (which I really liked, and will have a column about in a day or three), I'm kinda swamped -- but I imagine I'll put up some kind of "what'd ya think?" post tomorrow night, and after that, it'll depend on how good the post-pilot episodes are.
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