PUSH, NEVADA (ABC, THURSDAY, 9 P.M.), WHICH was produced by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, Chris Moore and Sean Bailey, just got the old heave-ho. Given its difficult time slot (opposite C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigationon CBS), the series was probably doomed from the start. Or maybe people just weren't in the mood for yet another endlessly digressive, cryptic and quite possibly nonsensical 13-part show, particularly one so obviously modeled on the Collected Works of David Lynch. Anyway, a show whose protagonist, Jim Prufrock, takes his name from a T.S. Eliot poem is probably asking for trouble. "I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,/And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat and snicker," wrote Eliot in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Those lines look increasingly appropriate for a series that was greeted with great fanfare by The New York Timesand has now been eulogized.
But let's remember that there were a few good things about Push. To start with, the hero, Prufrock (Derek Cecil), worked for the IRS, and given that practically everyone else on television between 9 and 10 p.m. is a criminal, cop, lawyer or doctor, a taxman at least brings a hint of the unexpected. Then there's the relationship between Prufrock and his secretary, Grace (Melora Walters, Magnolia), which had a sufficiently steady if low-wattage erotic buzz to it to make you want to hang around. They were the only honest characters in a show filled with duplicitous femmes fatales, larcenous police officers, depraved tattoo artists and all manner of grotesques, and you rooted for them instinctively.
Still, there were definitely some big problems, the major one being that the small-town gothic the show peddles is no longer fresh. In fact, it's beyond stale. The reign of Lynch and his imitators is finally over. It was fun while it lasted, but the mannerism has sucked out the mystery. Push, Nevadabilled itself as "interactive," with a million dollars to be won by the first viewer to spot all the clues leading to the solution of the puzzle, but obviously, given the dismal ratings, a million dollars wasn't enough to get people through it.
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