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Zack Snyder refined his flair for visuals as a music video director, hence his directorial debut Dawn of the Dead (2004) was indicative of film in the early 2000s, fast paced, bloody with a rocking soundtrack. Zack seemed to have discovered his niche with 2006’s 300 – based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller, concerning the battle of Thermopylae, it had gorgeous visuals complete with glistening six packs. It was all action and no story, protagonist King Leonidas / Gerard Butler’s only character trait being that he is tough and likes apples. It seemed as if this would be Snyder’s bread and butter, however he was spurred on by the success of 300 to take on a comic book, said to be unfilmable…

Watchmen to Man of Steel: A Leap of Faith

Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons graphic novel (published in 1987), was successful, not only for its cynical take on a world that had rejected vigilantes, exploring a mystery in the grips of the cold war, but also for its swaths of information between chapters that fleshed out its world, impossible to convey in a feature film. Although the 2009 film is polarizing, it is largely seen as a success, Snyder using visuals effectively yet again. However, doubts started to creep in- his ability to coach actors, his use of dialogue and his concentration on visuals over story were derided. Despite this, his big break came with the announcement that he was taking on DC’s most iconic character with 2013’s Man of Steel. After the success of Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, DC tuned to Snyder, buoyed by his take on Watchmen and convinced a darker last son of Krypton was the way forward. It is unclear whether the executives at DC and Warner Bros. had watched Snyder’s passion project – 2011’s Sucker Punch; a juvenile, unpleasant wet dream featuring scantily clad women fighting robots and Nazis in elaborate dream sequences – this should have been a foreshadowing of things to come. Snyder is bombastic by nature, like the scorpion stinging the frog in the famous parable, he can’t help being who he is, was this the right man to trust with your most lucrative property? Man of Steel was poorly received. It was the first example of a sense of nihilism creeping in, to what would come to define the DCEU (DC Extended Universe) with millions of civilians killed and Superman murdering Zod being real bones of contention for fans. The film also lacked the fun and adventure that Marvel had cultivated so well. The box office was impressive however, so Zack marched on with a sequel.

Batman VS Superman: The Dawn of Depression

There was mass hysteria when DC tweeted that Batman had been incorporated into a Man of Steel sequel and it would be called: Batman VS Superman, never had the two titans of DC comics appeared together in one film. Even when a poster of a Batman/Superman film was shown in Will Smith’s post-apocalyptic; I am Legend, fans lapped it up. This was big news, as it turned out that not only would Superman and Batman face off, this would lead into a Justice League film, teased with the subtitle, Dawn of Justice. But could Zack handle it? The visuals would be great but what about the story? Come March 2016 and the early reviews were not good (they were just out of touch academics who didn’t get comics books, right?). The story was overcomplicated, part of a convoluted scheme by Lex Luthor (an irritating Jesse Eisenberg still playing Facebook’s founder, instead of the calculating, self-assured supervillain so well portrayed by Gene Hackman), to discredit Superman and turn Batman against him. This story was improved by The Ultimate Cut; released on DVD and Blu-ray and totalling 3 hours, it made the overarching plot make more sense, however it couldn’t repair the film’s real problem. This epic is depressing, unpleasant and ultimately pessimistic. Snyder got so obsessed with the dark side of Batman, expertly captured in Tim Burton’s gothic fairy tale and comic book storylines such as Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, that he made Ben Affleck’s older, burnt out Dark Knight, unlikeable and, worst of all, stupid. Snyder takes us through the hero’s journey but forgets to end on a triumphant return, instead leaving the audience browbeaten after the Death of Superman (an iconic storyline that needs its own series of films to do it justice). Out of all the issues raised with the film, this feels like the fundamental flaw. Superhero films can be dark and brooding but they are meant to be fun! DC and Warner Bros. were already sold into his vision and had signed a contract for Zack to go onto direct a Justice League film, they were locked in now and just had to pray.

Justice League: A Hog with a Silk Shirt is still a Hog

We finally make it to the big one, the most lucrative DC property that has been around since the 1960s but had never made it to the big screen. What should have been a massive moment for comics and cinema was in trouble from the start. Firstly, unlike Marvel’s Avengers, which had been built up by multiple films, introducing us to the various characters that made up the super team, Batman VS Superman featured Wonder Woman on a laptop, looking at security footage of superheroes. It was no coincidence that Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman was the most popular member of the team after her well received 2017 standalone film. Justice League then had to introduce The Flash, Cyborg and Aquaman within a two-hour film – characters with decades of backstory to comb through. Then a tragic and unforeseen issue arose – Zack Snyder’s daughter committed suicide and he stepped away from the project. Warner Brothers quickly brought in Joss Whedon (who had been instrumental in the MCU by directing the first two Avengers movies) to provide reshoots and complete the picture. The result, released in late 2017, was a horrible mess. The reshoots were disastrous – Ben Affleck looking red and bloated after a stint in rehab, moustache-gate (after Henry Cavill’s handle bar wasn’t allowed to be shaved off while he was filming Mission: Impossible) and terrible humour thrown into scenes, trying to match the banter of Avengers. Although, once again, Synder will now produce his own cut of the film, totalling four hours and streaming on HBO Max from March 18^th. As the saying goes, ‘a hog with a silk shirt is still a hog’.

Conclusion

As the curtain closes on this iteration of the DCEU, the post-mortems are starting. None of this is Zack Snyder’s fault, he has just been playing with his toys, the only way he knows how – fast, bloody and with a grey filter (he evens wants to release a version of Justice League in black and white). Warner CEO Kevin Tsujihara (later resigning in 2019 over a sex scandal) and President of DC Entertainment Diane Nelson (who left in 2018) were both at the helm when deciding Snyder should have the keys to the kingdom. Instead of a steady hand like Kevin Feige at Marvel Studios, they entrusted the representation of DC’s most important characters with a director who wants to blow up the world without rebuilding it. Like Batman, Kevin and Diane were meant to be the master tacticians, however they handed control to the Joker, as we now know, just wants to watch the world burn. The kingdom has not been ruined but now needs serious renovation.

JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE SNYDER CUT will premiere in the UK on Sky and NowTV March 18^th

Ah, telephemera… those shows whose stay with us was tantalisingly brief, snatched away before their time, and sometimes with good cause. Dedicated miners of this fecund seam begin to notice the same names cropping up, again and again, as if their whole career was based on a principle of throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. What’s more, it isn’t all one-season failures and unsold pilots, there’s genuine gold to be found amongst their hoards; these men are surely the Titans of Telephemera!

STEPHEN J CANNELL

Stephen J Cannell had a ton of hits in the 1970s and 1980s, bringing The Rockford Files, The A-Team, 21 Jump Street, and more, to our screens, but he also had his fair share of misses. Several of those shows actually lasted beyond their first season, and have entered into popular memory, such as The Greatest American Hero, but just as many failed to make any impact at all, not even making it to the end of their recorded run. This is the story of Stephen J Cancelled…

Tenspeed and Brown Shoe (1980, ABC): By the turn of the decade, Cannell was already becoming known for his quirky crime dramas, with Baretta and The Rockford Files doing big numbers for ABC and NBC, respectively, and despite the hiccup that was Richie Brockelman, Private Eye, he sold ABC on his latest project, a misfit detective agency based in Los Angeles.

Ben Vereen – who had made a splash as Chicken George in Roots – was cast as EL (for Early Leroy) Turner, also known as Tenspeed, a streetwise career criminal who was working as a Private Detective to satisfy his parole requirements. He partnered with Jeff Goldbum’s Lionel Whitney, a staid accountant who had always dreamed of becoming a PI, and indulged his fantasy by reading a hard-boiled detective novel series, The Mark Savage Mysteries.

The pilot featured a wacky plot about stolen Nazi diamonds, but put the pieces in place for the comedic adventures of the mismatched pair, getting involved with motorcycle gangs, beauty pageants, and super computers, with an 8pm Sunday slot inherited from Mork & Mindy initially earning good ratings. Things dropped off towards the end of the fourteen-episode run, but the show still ranked twenty-ninth in the year-end Nielsen ratings, despite running against Archie Bunker’s Place and One Day at a Time.

It was a surprise, then, when ABC declined to renew the show for a second season, and instead moved the final season of Charlie’s Angels into its slot, while Cannell moved on to The Greatest American Hero for the network, debuting in early 1981. Ben Vereen worked again with Cannell on Silk Stalkings and later reprised his role as Tenspeed for a handful of episodes of Cannell’s 1987 one-season wonder, JJ Starbuck, but I wonder what happened to that Goldbum guy?

The Rousters (1983, NBC): 1983 was a huge year for Cannell, with The A-Team and Hardcastle & McCormickstarting their runs on NBC and ABC, respectively, but he also had another series debuting on NBC, the quirky bounty hunter show, The Rousters, which featured a family of circus folks descended from the legendary Wyatt Earp.

Wyatt Earp II – played by Medical Center’s Dr Joe Gannon, Chad Everett – is a bouncer at Slademan’s Circus, and sees his famous ancestor as a burden, but his mother is determined that they should follow in the footsteps of the fabled lawman by becoming bounty hunters, and all sort of circus- and crime-related shenanigans follow.

With an ensemble that also featured Hoyt Axton, Maxine Stuart, Jim Varney, and Mimi Rogers, NBC made the huge claim that The Rousters would be “the show that sank The Love Boat,” but the ratings told a different story, and the show was cancelled after just six of the thirteen completed episodes had been aired. The rest were shown in the summer of 1984 as a schedule filler, and a series of sitcoms were instead lined up against the CBS leviathan.

While the world may not have been ready for a show about carny bounty hunters descended from a Tombstone lawman, Jim Varney found big screen fame as stupid everyman Ernest P Worrell, beginning with 1985’s Dr Otto and the Riddle of the Gloom Beam, while Cannell concentrated his efforts on his hit shows, which would soon be joined by Hunter. But it wouldn’t be too long until the idea of comedic crime-fighting misfits would rear its head once more…

The Last Precinct (1986, NBC): Replacing the curtailed final season of Knight Rider in the Friday at 9pm slot, The Last Precinct took its cues from Police Academy and Night Court, both of which were delighting audiences across America. Co-created with Frank Lupo, the show saw Adam West – still trying to throw off his Batman legacy – as Captain Rick Wright, the head of a police precinct staffed entirely by the LAPD’s rejects.

This ragtag bunch includes an Elvis impersonator, a sexy policewoman (who used to be a man), an overweight motorcycle cop and a guy caught sleeping with the Mayor’s underage daughter, and includes a post-Ghostbusters Ernie Hudson desperately looking for another hit. The pilot aired straight after Superbowl XX in January 1986, and a short series began in April, unfortunately scheduled against Dallas (which, even in 1986, was the number six show in the ratings).

Randi Brooks as Mel may have been the first transgender main character on US network TV, and there was a lot to like about The Last Precinct – not least of which was that the men who fell at her feet were the butt of the joke, rather than her being the usual man in a dress. But there was also a lot not to like, with Vijay Amritaj as Alphabet (so called because his real name was the unpronounceable Shivoramanbhai Poonchwalla), the victim of some anachronistic racial humour.

The show did not return for the new season, with the public preferring their unorthodox but surprisingly-effective police officers to stay on the silver screen, where Adam West would soon be seen in Night of the Kickfighters and Omega Cop. Cannell would try another misfit cop show four years later, with Broken Badges, where Miguel Ferrer corralled a bunch of policemen on psychiatric suspension, but that, too, failed to get beyond seven episodes before being yanked from the screen.

The 100 Lives of Black Jack Savage (1991, NBC): A literal sea-change from his previous endeavours, the Disney co-produced The 100 Lives of Black Jack Savage eschewed Cannell’s usual crime procedural for a fantastic tale of the ghost of a brutal pirate and a crooked Wall Street trader looking to atone for their misdeeds.

Steven Williams, just off four years in Cannell’s 21 Jump Street, is the titular buccaneer, who escaped justice by hiding out in his castle on the Caribbean island of San Pietro. Three-hundred years later, his peace is shattered when Barry Tarberry, a financial con artist on the run from the US authorities, holes up on the island, taking up residence in the pirate’s chateau.

With Savage’s spirit unable to leave the castle lest he be dragged to Hell by the Snarks, and Tarberry constantly dodging extradition, the pair realise that they have to save one-hundred souls to prevent Tarberry joining Savage in eternal damnation. Williams and Daniel Hugh Kelly (McCormick from Hardcastle & … fame) tried hard with the weak material, and there’s some comic relief to be found in Bert Rosario’s banana republic dictator and Black Jack’s audacious inventions, but audiences did not warm to the show, which aired against CBS’s 60 Minutes, the number two show in the ratings, on a Sunday evening.

Still, in a year which also the debuts of Street Justice, Silk Stalkings, and The Commish, Cannell had every reason to be happy with his lot. He’d brought twenty-eight shows to series since enjoying his first hit with Baretta in 1975, and the likes of Renegade was just around the corner. That’s not to say there weren’t projects that didn’t make it to series, however, and we’ll look at those unsold pilots next time out in Titans of Telephemera!

Related Reading from STARBURST:

TITANS OF TELEPHEMERA: STEPHEN J CANNELL – PART 1

TITANS OF TELEPHEMERA: GLEN A LARSON – PART 1

TITANS OF TELEPHEMERA: GLEN A LARSON – PART 2

TITANS OF TELEPHEMERA: GLEN A LARSON – PART 3

TITANS OF TELEPHEMERA: GLEN A LARSON – PART 4