Network: ESPN; Genre: Drama; Content Rating: TV-MA (for strong language, nudity, brief simulated sex and drug use); Available: DVD; Perspective: Contemporary (star range: 1 - 4);
Seasons Reviewed: Complete Series (1 season)
"Playmakers" focuses on the off-the-field lives of the players of the fictitious New York Cougars football team. Everyone has a secret and the game is just a game, but your entire livelihood hinges on your performance in that game. The team includes the coach (John Denison, looking the part), the slimy manager Wilbanks (Bruce Gray, in a full-on hiss-the-villain role), nice guy Olczyk (Jason Matthew Smith) haunted by memories of paralyzing an opponent, the womanizing quarterback McConnell (Christopher Weihl) and a rivalry between the veteran (now over-the-hill at 30) running back Leon Taylor (Russell Hornsby), and the young, punk, endorsement flavor-of-the-month Harris (Omar Gooding) with Harris' crony with a conscience "Buffalo" (Marcello Thedford) in tow. It is worth mentioning that Gooding does a turn so memorably vicious here it washes away any association with his Disney Channel days.
It is no surprise that "Playmakers" was originally made for FX. It has the same visceral shaky-cam style and flawed anti-heroes you'd see on "The Shield" with many of the same directors and crew. Thanks to shows like "The Shield", the primetime drama is so big now even ESPN has gotten in on the action. "Playmakers" is their first attempt at creating an intelligent dramatic series around sports on a network that is watched by people who couldn't care less about this type of stuff and just want to see a game. All football action is limited to quick flashbacks and training sessions.
As created by John Eisendrath ("Alias") "Playmakers" pulls the veil off the football industry. Instead of being the noble sport played by modern day gladiators that the media celebrate, "Playmakers" depicts football as a sport that trades in pain. The players are so loyal to it, so enticed at the possibility of getting a 4 million dollar contract and being sat for life before age 30, that they risk and often loose their physical health. Torn ACLs, stress induced illness, diabetes, amputation, and thousands of yards of broken bones are part of a regular battle for these guys to keep their bodies from breaking down long enough to get out and win the game. They may not actually be at war but their lifespan is not much longer than a soldier in the military. They have violent tendencies that can bleed over into their personal life.
The show's constant focus on the painful reality of the game and what it does to players is no doubt what caused the NFL to pressure ESPN to pull the show. It was an act of cowardess to preserve the mysticism of a sport that so transfixes the nation. Forget religion and civil rights, "Playmakers" had the nerve to deliver pointed commentary on one of America's greatest unspoken sacred cows - football.
It is ironic because the show saves its biggest barbs for the media, which are shown like mindless, slobbering animals screaming over each other thinking their questions can be heard. Most of what Wilbanks does is supposedly a preemptive response to how the press will spin a rumor.
That's not to say that the show was great. But first the good stuff. It is almost a visceral thing of beauty. Kinetic images are stitched together with the pumping of primal beats and techno music. Not only that but, get out your history book, "Playmakers" marks a first: narration delivered from multiple characters each episode in the 2nd person.
The show's locker-room centered concept also presents it with some innovative storytelling opportunities. One episode takes place entirely during a halftime break, another through flashbacks on the field of a playoff game. The episodes are a mixed bag, but the best ones pull a clever diversion job on us, withholding a single piece of information and then springing it on us in the final twist. "The P*** Man" (featuring an outrageous way to beat a urine test) and "Distance & Direction" (where Olczyk faces off with a frighteningly good opponent) are two incredibly well written and entertaining pieces of TV.
But "Playmakers" can't go the distance. Eisendrath quickly reverts back to subjects that have become cliché in the "edgy melodrama series" in order to fill out the season. Domestic violence, abortion, child custody fights, cancer battles and night club shootings. As if ripped from the headlines. Just when you think you've seen everything you've seen before, the show trots out the old "gay-man-in-the-closet" storyline. The show doesn't give us a new perspective on these subjects; it just applies them to football players. Those who thought there was an unbelievable amount of controversy for a single school in "Boston Public" should go into fits trying to swallow the multitude of crisis' that befalls this one team.
The hyper-stylized nature of "Playmakers" is one that becomes a mess in the wrong hands and a few episodes appear to be in those hands as a director sends the flashbacks and quick cuts on overdrive. It has a nasty pension for showing us things we just saw seconds ago.
Working wisely with a cast of virtual unknowns to make the show feel all the more real, "Playmakers" is at its best when we are just hanging out with the guys in the locker room or looking at the world through a football metaphor. It is when it gets out of the stadium and on the streets or into their homes (Leon's obnoxious wife, Robin, is a drain on the series) that things grind to a halt. It's a shame when a show with this much style and innovation built in winds up being so predictable. Still, if you are already watching it, "Playmakers" is worth hanging on to all the way until it's clever downbeat ending.
* * ½ / 4
Seasons Reviewed: Complete Series (1 season)
"Playmakers" focuses on the off-the-field lives of the players of the fictitious New York Cougars football team. Everyone has a secret and the game is just a game, but your entire livelihood hinges on your performance in that game. The team includes the coach (John Denison, looking the part), the slimy manager Wilbanks (Bruce Gray, in a full-on hiss-the-villain role), nice guy Olczyk (Jason Matthew Smith) haunted by memories of paralyzing an opponent, the womanizing quarterback McConnell (Christopher Weihl) and a rivalry between the veteran (now over-the-hill at 30) running back Leon Taylor (Russell Hornsby), and the young, punk, endorsement flavor-of-the-month Harris (Omar Gooding) with Harris' crony with a conscience "Buffalo" (Marcello Thedford) in tow. It is worth mentioning that Gooding does a turn so memorably vicious here it washes away any association with his Disney Channel days.
It is no surprise that "Playmakers" was originally made for FX. It has the same visceral shaky-cam style and flawed anti-heroes you'd see on "The Shield" with many of the same directors and crew. Thanks to shows like "The Shield", the primetime drama is so big now even ESPN has gotten in on the action. "Playmakers" is their first attempt at creating an intelligent dramatic series around sports on a network that is watched by people who couldn't care less about this type of stuff and just want to see a game. All football action is limited to quick flashbacks and training sessions.
As created by John Eisendrath ("Alias") "Playmakers" pulls the veil off the football industry. Instead of being the noble sport played by modern day gladiators that the media celebrate, "Playmakers" depicts football as a sport that trades in pain. The players are so loyal to it, so enticed at the possibility of getting a 4 million dollar contract and being sat for life before age 30, that they risk and often loose their physical health. Torn ACLs, stress induced illness, diabetes, amputation, and thousands of yards of broken bones are part of a regular battle for these guys to keep their bodies from breaking down long enough to get out and win the game. They may not actually be at war but their lifespan is not much longer than a soldier in the military. They have violent tendencies that can bleed over into their personal life.
The show's constant focus on the painful reality of the game and what it does to players is no doubt what caused the NFL to pressure ESPN to pull the show. It was an act of cowardess to preserve the mysticism of a sport that so transfixes the nation. Forget religion and civil rights, "Playmakers" had the nerve to deliver pointed commentary on one of America's greatest unspoken sacred cows - football.
It is ironic because the show saves its biggest barbs for the media, which are shown like mindless, slobbering animals screaming over each other thinking their questions can be heard. Most of what Wilbanks does is supposedly a preemptive response to how the press will spin a rumor.
That's not to say that the show was great. But first the good stuff. It is almost a visceral thing of beauty. Kinetic images are stitched together with the pumping of primal beats and techno music. Not only that but, get out your history book, "Playmakers" marks a first: narration delivered from multiple characters each episode in the 2nd person.
The show's locker-room centered concept also presents it with some innovative storytelling opportunities. One episode takes place entirely during a halftime break, another through flashbacks on the field of a playoff game. The episodes are a mixed bag, but the best ones pull a clever diversion job on us, withholding a single piece of information and then springing it on us in the final twist. "The P*** Man" (featuring an outrageous way to beat a urine test) and "Distance & Direction" (where Olczyk faces off with a frighteningly good opponent) are two incredibly well written and entertaining pieces of TV.
But "Playmakers" can't go the distance. Eisendrath quickly reverts back to subjects that have become cliché in the "edgy melodrama series" in order to fill out the season. Domestic violence, abortion, child custody fights, cancer battles and night club shootings. As if ripped from the headlines. Just when you think you've seen everything you've seen before, the show trots out the old "gay-man-in-the-closet" storyline. The show doesn't give us a new perspective on these subjects; it just applies them to football players. Those who thought there was an unbelievable amount of controversy for a single school in "Boston Public" should go into fits trying to swallow the multitude of crisis' that befalls this one team.
The hyper-stylized nature of "Playmakers" is one that becomes a mess in the wrong hands and a few episodes appear to be in those hands as a director sends the flashbacks and quick cuts on overdrive. It has a nasty pension for showing us things we just saw seconds ago.
Working wisely with a cast of virtual unknowns to make the show feel all the more real, "Playmakers" is at its best when we are just hanging out with the guys in the locker room or looking at the world through a football metaphor. It is when it gets out of the stadium and on the streets or into their homes (Leon's obnoxious wife, Robin, is a drain on the series) that things grind to a halt. It's a shame when a show with this much style and innovation built in winds up being so predictable. Still, if you are already watching it, "Playmakers" is worth hanging on to all the way until it's clever downbeat ending.
* * ½ / 4