Skin

"Skin," the recent Fox schlockudrama that promised, "Sopranos"-style, to bring pole dancing to prime time, was canceled so fast that the original version of this review was obsolete before it even ran. The show's rapid demise proves that even with a "Romeo & Juliet" backstory and a tag line like "The DA's Son and the Pornographer's Daughter," hemorrhaging one million viewers per episode is never a recipe for television success.

With so much awfulness packed into so little time, the three episodes of "Skin" are destined for ignominious immortality. The story was predictable, the dialogue wooden, the weird montages between scenes a hopeless cross between "Miami Vice" and The Matrix. The show wasn't nearly as racy as its potential audience had been led to believe it would be. Like its hero — a pornographer with a subscription to the Chronicle of Philanthropy — the show trafficked in sex for the fringe benefits.

But the fact of the matter is that "Skin" didn't suck nearly as a much as it could have, and, given the fact that it was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, it could have sucked a great deal. The luridly fascinating "CSI" franchise may be Bruckheimer's crowning achievement, but he has left plenty of trash in his wake. In spite of its flaws, "Skin" rose above that heap before its speedy cancellation.

But it did not get there on the rising fortunes of its young stars. Adam Roam, the DA's son, (played by D.J. Cotrona) was an object lesson for what happens when you have a perfect jaw and an open mouth: people want to punch you in the face. Cotrona held the audience's attention mostly when he was silent. As Adam lurched about Los Angeles, chafing under the loveless, careerist marriage of his parents, taking his shirt off frequently and pretending to brood, he had us at "I'll get a room." In that respect, he was much like Romeo — un-cocksuredly cocksure at the outset, his simplicity shone through as the story progressed.

Jewel Goldman (played by Olivia Wilde) was wide-eyed and believable as the spoiled daughter of a very rich man, and like Juliet, she showed nothing but tenderness toward the woman her family exploited as a domestic servant. The show's now-defunct website pointed out that Wilde graduated from Philips Andover, but why Fox felt an Andover degree was relevant to her portrayal of the sizzling, debauched daughter of a porno king is unclear. Like the rest of "Skin," the fewer questions you asked, the better the show was.

But it wasn't the flashy rookies who made the show — it was the wily veterans. Ron Silver was particularly adept as Larry Goldman, the pornographer with a heart of, um, gold. In an age of "moral clarity," Silver's performance asserted that pornographers, like corrupt mutual fund executives and members of the Iraqi National Congress, are people too. When asked why he was willing to give $80 million anonymously to build a new wing at a cancer center, he replied, "It's the right thing to do." A mensch for our time, he actively tried to dissuade young things from joining his racket. But alas, his less than impervious professional virtue could have meant trouble. And we're talking explosions here, people. Ron Silver and explosions. Only Fox would cancel this show and keep "Joe Millionaire" part deux.

Was "Skin" proper tribute to Shakespeare? Consider the source. "Romeo and Juliet" is one of the Bard's earlier plays, and, as such, it makes up with resplendent language what it lacks in character development. Re-read the play: It's easier to believe that Macbeth meets three witches in the forest that goad him to regicide than it is to accept that Romeo and Juliet actually love one another. The most memorable characters in the play, the flamboyant Mercutio and the raging Tybalt, are dead at the beginning of the third act. Benvolio is a tool, Friar Laurence a bore, the Prince even worse. And where, as contemporary hand-wringers might say, are the parents?

This is where "Skin" did the Bard one better. By focusing its lens on the parents of the star-crossed duo, it revealed layers of anguish and emotion that the Bard missed and even Bruckheimer couldn't blot out. Shooting baskets with his son, District Attorney Thomas Roam muses that the image of the two of them playing one-on-one would make a great campaign ad (he is running for re-election). His son balks, and the elder Roam is left alone to stew in his bumbling paternal mistake. Similarly, porn king Goldman pauses in the midst of admonishing aspiring strippers to ask his daughter for a kiss as she departs for school.

Trite, you say? Indeed, but certainly more subtle than Poppa Capulet, who beats and disowns his daughter, not for sleeping around with Romeo, but merely for refusing to wed the insipid Paris. And the Montagues can't even find their son at the beginning of the play; nor do they pretend to know the source of his desperation (even though everyone else does). They have to dispatch the hapless Benvolio to do the dirty work for them. The Roams know their son is love-sick, and thus they promptly ground him. And incredibly, Adam, whose parents are rarely home, somehow lacks a single friend with a car to spring him from his Hollywood bungalow. This allows more time for pretend brooding, his sinewy silhouette amplified by the total absence of electric light in the Roam household.

There is no question that "Skin" had its flaws. But in the long line of "Romeo and Juliet" makeovers, it distinguished itself by making the plot device of the self-important, sentimental, overused child lovers take a backseat, which is where, after too many too-long high school performances, it belongs. We will never know how closely Bruckheimer and Co. planned on hewing to the text. Perhaps a future episode on D.A. Roam's crack habit would have pushed the bounds of incredulity, but, on Fox, credulity is clearly not at a premium. At least for these three sweaty, smoggy episodes, while the kids (presumably) moved closer to offing themselves, the grownup actors had some fun at their expense. "This love feel I, that feel no love in this," quoth Romeo. "Dost thou not laugh?" Oh, yes.

— Joshua Adams (joshua at uchicago dot edu)