I watched the TV show "Do Over" on the WB on Thursday night. Been meaning to catch an episode because the concept is cool, and something I've thought would be a cool gimmick for a screenplay or a tv show, done well -- adult, through some unexplained accident, gets to go back in time and re-live high school, knowing what he knows as an adult. Could be really good. This sitcom, however, wasn't. Instead of using the concept to create interesting dilemmas for the character -- save someone from heading down a road he knows leads to disaster at the cost of affecting your own future negatively? -- this show's writers used it purely as an excuse to have the character say one-liners that are funny to him but no one else knows what he's talking about. "Oh -- look how stupid the son of Vice President Bush is. He'll never amount to anything." "I wouldn't be so sure." One of the subplots of the episode I saw was the kid turns in the Nirvana song "Smells Like Teen Spirit" as a poetry class assignment, and the teacher gets concerned. What a waste of a good concept. Kind of like the movie "Galaxy Quest." Cool idea. But the execution totally wasted the potential.
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