TV
Profit (Fox 1996, Adrian Pasdar, Lisa Zone)
He was living in a box. Living in a cardboard box.
Obscure ’80s pop-band lyrics aside, that was an accurate description of Jim Profit’s (Adrian Pasdar) childhood. Reared by his cheapskate father following his mother’s death, young Jim was put into a large packing crate, where his only company was the TV, which he watched through a hole cut in the box.
As a teen, Jim, who learned all he needed to know from the tube, handcuffed his evil father to his bed and set him ablaze. Flash forward to the completely amoral, Machiavellian, 28-year-old Profit, now a Wharton MBA grad with one goal: to take over the Gracen & Gracen company, because it was a Gracen & Gracen packing box that had served as his “home” and robbed him of his childhood.
The extraordinarily dark drama, which aired for just four episodes, saw the psychopathic Profit lie, steal, cheat and blackmail his way to more and more power in the company, as he was himself blackmailed by his trashy stepmonster Bobbi, who knew of his early torture.
But sadly, just as Profit’s coworkers began to catch on to his machinations, Fox, which supposedly never saw the show a good match for its demographics, closed the lid on one of the freshest shows that ever aired on the idiot box.
production details
USA / Fox / 4×50 minute episodes / Broadcast Monday 8 April – Monday 29 April 1996
cast
Adrian Pasdar as Jim Profit
Lisa Zane as Joanne Meltzer
Lisa Blount as Bobbi Stankowski
Jack Gwaltney as Peter Gracen
Keith Szarabajka as Charles Henry “Chaz” Gracen
Allison Hossack as Nora Gracen
Lisa Darr as Gail Koner
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