Crusoe: The Complete Series

Poor Daniel Defoe must have been spinning in his grave while the 13 interminable episodes of this 2008-09 series—ostensibly based on Defoe's classic early-18th-century novel—were airing on NBC. Less an adaptation of Robinson Crusoe than a period drama rip-off of Lost and MacGyver, the series adopted Defoe's basic premise but completely distorted both his themes and characters. As in the original, the shipwrecked Crusoe (blandly played by “himbo” Philip Winchester) winds up on a supposedly deserted island, where he's aided by native pal Friday (Tongayi Chirisa), but here the pair's ingenious efforts produce a tree house that Tarzan himself would have envied, while they also create an assortment of handmade weapons and gadgets designed to facilitate day-to-day survival. Since the two-hour pilot episode pretty much exhausts the plot, the remaining 12 episodes are jury-rigged from hackneyed situations that become both repetitions and tedious in fairly short order. In the interest of political correctness, Friday isn't presented as an ignorant savage but as an equal of Crusoe's, which is socially laudable, but also subverts Defoe's theme of Crusoe's loneliness stemming from lack of peers with whom to interact. Flashbacks are used indiscriminately to flesh out the story (and offer an excuse to introduce guest stars), but these scenes mostly throw off the show's pacing while doing nothing to ameliorate the basic problem: as presented here, Crusoe and Friday simply aren't very interesting. Simultaneously unimaginative and soporific, this is not recommended. (E. Hulse)