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Original
Air Date: 8/15/92 on ABC Synopsis: This was a series pilot. Joel Grey plays a dead lawyer that was run over by a bus full of nuns who then is on a mission to dole out "spiritual paybacks" - kind of Twilight Zone meets Fantasy Island. Rick plays a guy who killed his wife (Morgan Fairchild) and his lawyer (Joan Severance) defends him to a "not guilty" verdict and they go on to have an affair.. She lets him know that she knows he in fact was guilty. The dead wife comes back and convinces the lawyer that he will now try to kill her. Simon gets his "Just Deserts". And in case you think we're leaving an "s" out of "deserts" - we're not. ABC even did a special called "The Best TV Shows That Never Were" and called this TV show on misspelling it's name (thinking it should be "Just Desserts"), but in fact, it means - deserved reward or punishment. |
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 Another Strawberry Scene! |
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| This was a pilot for a series on ABC. It wasn't picked up so there is just the one episode. It actually aired right before an episode of Human Target. A double shot of Rick Springfield, all in one summer Saturday night. The description of this being a "Fantasy Island meets Twilight Zone" seems pretty accurate to me. People have come to a resort, Whisper Mountain, and in some cases, they definitely won't get the vacation they were hoping for. The episode starts out with a guy jumping out of an airplane and both of his rip cords failing to open. He apparently killed his business partner the same way, so he is getting his "Just Deserts". Rick plays a man (Simon) that has just been acquitted of killing his wife. He is at the resort with his lawyer (Libby), who defended him, having figured out halfway through the trial that he was guilty. She lets him know she knows the truth. She wakens in the morning, to find Simon gone, but is joined by the dead wife, Kathryn (Morgan Fairchild). Kathryn lets Libby know that she has made a terrible mistake by letting Simon know he was guilty and that he will try to kill her too. Libby receives a phone call from Simon, telling her to meet him at the stables so they can ride together. Libby goes riding, but then gets shot at. Kathryn shows up to say "I told you so". Libby goes back to the hotel room, finds Simon's gun (with some help from Kathryn) and confronts Simon, and backs him up and over the balcony, where he conveniently falls to his death, right into the grave that Joel Gray had dug for him. (personally, I think Kathryn was the one shooting at her, but you never know for sure). Very much an "eye for an eye" kind of thing. I thought the acting was good, but with three storylines going on during the show, there wasn't a lot of substance to it, and of the three, this seemed like the one that got the least amount of time. The opening scene with Rick, did involve a tennis game between he and Libby, so that was interesting, and there was also a little strawberry scene, that couldn't help but jolt your memory to the General Hospital days, but it wasn't near as spicy - it was a hand to mouth exchange instead of a mouth to mouth exchange (damn!). The second plot involved Greg Evigan as a real jerk who would get women into bed by making up sob stories about his dead fiance/wife just to have a one night stand. His punishment was he was turned into a woman. I wonder how interesting it would have been if Rick had gotten this part instead. I couldn't decide if I would rather him be a murderer or a total and complete jerk. Kind of a toss up :-P The third plot had Tim Reid as an engineer that designed airplane engines and a fault was found with his, and he had to decide whether to bring it to the attention of his company or not. After having a bad dream, he does decide to do the right thing. Since there was just the one episode, it's hard to say if there would have been any consistency, but it seems like they probably would have had death, punishment and redemption in each episode. Simon killed his wife, he dies. Greg Evigan's character was a jerk, so he is doomed to be the victim of people like himself, and Tim Reid made the right choice in the end, so he got to go on about his life. It's probably a good thing for Jane Leeves that the series wasn't picked up. She went on to a long and successful stint on Frasier, and I'm sure this wouldn't have done quite so well. - rlh |
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