Great show, but get the names right.

Note: You have Amanda’s last name listed two ways: Marsh and Walsh. I guess it’s Walsh. I sent this yesterday, but corrected her name in this copy, if you even care. You guys are pioneers here. Get the names right. Don’t make me get Ramon Estevez after you.

Please don’t give up on this show. Much of mainstream TV is so obvious that you end up feeling used when the show ends. Slimed, even. If network middlemen got hold of The Remnants before shooting, they would have insisted that the post-apocalyptically ruined people, quietly mentioned and never shown in this pilot, be filmed (taped) with close-up gore and most certainly meanness, the way Hollywood forever destroyed Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
What a great vehicle (a stupid word here, but I guess a show is supposed to take you somewhere?) for illustrating how we can slip past each other with our Bluetooth enabled lives. our cell phones, Ipods and whatever other technology gets us through the day. But revoke those technologies instantly and watch people finally have to face each other in a new nineteenth century type existence.
The characters are great. If these folks had to repopulate the world, it would be as flawed as ever and maybe evolution would have to play a moments catch up. But at least humor would have a second chance to flourish in whoever followed.
The cast is wonderful. Everyone of them understated. Ernie Hudson as Wallace is great as always. He’s Chris Botti on the horn; never a wrong note. Ben Falcone as Norm is a scream when he wears his doubts on his sleeve. I’ve never seen Amanda Walsh before, but she is even more talented than she is beautiful. Her close-ups are stunning. She needn’t have hands to sign to the deaf, her face speaks her mind. When Walsh’s character is asked about being at the Grand Canyon near the end of the show, you can hit mute and still hear her answer. I have to know what happened to her and everyone else at the Grand Canyon. Justine Bateman is one of the most under-utilized actors around. In The Remnants, as Gwen, she’s just itching to start some new world order, to get beyond who is damaged and who isn’t and though it’s been only weeks since whatever has happened to the world, she’s already focused on the larger task at hand and can’t tolerate anyone who slows the process. And she’s funny at it. Besides The Remnants, and an appearance as a hooker on Arrested Development (very funny), I haven’t seen her in too many shows. Although, she made me laugh out loud when I saw her on some Illeana Douglas produced goofy talk show at Ikea. My 10 year old asked what I was laughing at. I told him I couldn’t explain it. (If you think you can explain comedy to anyone, it must be horrible to be you).
The business side of the web can be troublesome. I was a photojournalist for a newspaper like many others that ventured into the web without any sort of plan or model. Most ended up giving away the store for virtually nothing. And now, like a power grid failing in sequence, they’re fading to black one after the other. And it started long before the current recession. It‘s better to be independent and far way from conventional thinkers who cram offices and add only cost to other people’s creative endeavors. I hope the people involved in The Remnants can make it work on the internet.
It’s the best way to view programs that are alive and fresh without the idiotic, mind-numbing preservatives network suits smother over everything. (It may be just me, but network unnecessaries remind me of newspaper publishers, most of whom died north of their nostrils a long time ago from their perfectly tightened Windsor’s). You’ve opened the can of chips with The Remnants. If you can’t give me the entire container, could you guys give me at least one more?

Ken White
Kenthorwhite@aol.com