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The New Addams Family - Deadbeat Relatives
episode 1.2
Canada 1998
produced by Victoria Woods, Lance H. Robbins (executive), James Shavick (executive) for Shavick Entertainment, Saban Entertainment, Film Incentive B.C., 20th Century Fox
directed by Ron Oliver
starring Glenn Taranto, Ellie Harvie, Brody Smith, Nicole Fugere, Betty Phillips, Michael Roberds, John DeSantis, Steven Fox, Christopher Shyer
screenplay by Robert L. Baird, Kelly Senecal, based on characters created by Charles Addams, music by Barron Abramovitch
TV-series The Addams Family, The New Addams Family
review by Mike Haberfelner
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During a picnic on the family graveyard, young Wednesday (Nicole
Fugere) and Pugsley (Brody Smith) decide to raise a dead relative - just
for fun of course. Only that dead relative is Vlad (Christopher Shyer), an
old lover of Morticia (Ellie Harvie), who brought back to life immediately
starts to sweettalk her again, much to the dismay of Gomez (Glenn
Taranto), who actually (and erroneously) thinks Vlad is succeeding and
contemplates suicide - while the children put up various death traps to
kill Vlad. But they invariably fail to succeed as they either backfire or
only prove that you can't kill a dead man. So ultimately it's up to
grandma (Betty Phillips) to provide them with a spell to send Vlad back to
the netherworld - and it's really about time, as to get rid of Gomez Vlad
has challenged him to a death duel, and while Gomez fights with all he's
got and seems to mostly have the other hand, it's impossible to win a
death duel when the opponent is already dead to begin with ... and I need
not add here that all ultimately ends happily, right? Ok, there
are a few ok sight gags and oneliners in this one, but they all lack the
subtleness of the original
series but are all driven home via sledgehammer. And in terms
of actual storytelling, this one hasn't much to offer as it strides off
into one direction after the other, and the death duel that ends the
episode lacks actual tension as the audience has plenty of advance warning
that the kids already have the death spell to save their father - so apart
from some martial arts that come out of nowhere and a bit of slapstick the
final fight is a rather dull affair. In all though, the episode isn't a
totall dud but certainly lacks any cohesiveness.
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review © by Mike Haberfelner
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Robots and rats,
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