JULY 23, 2006
LOTTO FEVER
Hello! Here we are again with my weekly blog.
"Lotto Fever" is one of those classic Dead Zone episodes that balances humor, heart and horror -- what we like to call the three H's. It's got this really wonderful character actor, Benjamin Ratner, who starts off in one place and, by the end of the episode, has gone on a journey -- as has Johnny and the audience -- and really ends up in a whole different place.
Really, that's the fun of The Dead Zone: playing with these guest stars, not only for them to learn something, but for Johnny to be a surrogate for them, ultimately reflecting back on his own life and his own choices with his own family.
We all have the wish of being able to see the future. If we could see the future, could we make the right choices? Could we go left instead of right? Could we marry this person? Could we take this job? If we could see the future, we could avoid pain, we could be happier and make more money and be healthy and save people that we love.
Short of being psychic, I think that the next best thing we could think of is winning the lottery, of having limitless resources in order to control the future, do away with problems and not have to worry. I think that the moral of this story is that money isn't really everything, it's the relationships we have, it's the small choices we make with the people that we love that matter. You don't have to be psychic to control or fix the important things in life, one of which is family.
To me, it's just a really fun sort of "After Hours"-type adventure where something Johnny did in the past comes back to haunt him, where some poor guy that Johnny maybe helped -- or didn't even know he helped -- ends up taking Johnny along on this adventure and, ultimately, Johnny ends up helping him realize what's really important. You have these two people that don't really like each other but are stuck together on this journey, the pressure builds and, ultimately, it becomes this great sort of buddy picture.
Anthony Michael Hall is so great at doing comedy and I thought there was a real spark between those two actors. And I didn't used to think that the director, Michael Robison, was good at comedy -- he's such a visualist. He comes from an editing background. Actually, to me, this is one of the funniest episodes he ever directed. Really, half of directing is casting the right people and putting them in the right roles, and I thought the show was really well cast, really well directed, was visually interesting and really took you on a journey. The character of Lumely's wife was also well cast. That actress, Jocelyne Loewen, was really great. You really felt the connection between her and Boyd. It felt like two real people, a real married couple.
Until next week,
Shawn Piller
Executive Producer
Past Entries:
- (7/16) The Inside Man
- (7/9) Articles of Faith
- (7/2) Panic
- (6/25) Independence Day
- (6/18) Forbidden Fruit
