web hosting short URLs photo sharing

By Mike Thompson

We all know this type of guy. High schools are full of them. Usually, people grow out of the phase by the time they reach college. Deep down, he’s a good guy; mature, sensitive, caring. Unfortunately, he just can’t resist talking himself up, making him seem like he’s something that he’s not, to try to appear "cool" in front of his friends. As a result, this sensitive young man comes off as shallow and immature. The $treet, FOX’s new drama, is like one of these kids. Occasional flashes of greatness are lost amidst a sea of sexual innuendoes that try to make the show seem cutting edge. Unfortunately, they just wind up making the show seem sophomoric.

The $treet is about a bunch of young go-getters who all work at the same Wall Street investment firm. And they are: Jack Kenderson (Tom Everett Scott), the resident good guy; Freddie Sacker (Rick Hoffman), the resident slimeball; Evan Mitchell (Adam Goldberg), the resident oddball "geek;" Tim Sherman (Christian Campbell), the young trainee; and Mark McConnell (Sean Maher), another worker at the firm who, quite frankly, has nothing to distinguish him from the rest.

There are some women in the cast. Nina Garbiras plays Alexandra Brill, a woman who was engaged to Jack but, in the pilot, gets dumped by him for lying behind his back. Donna Pasqua (Melissa Desoussa) is a new employee who serves in a higher position at the firm than a lot of the male components of the cast, and some characters, mainly Freddie, can’t handle that. But, by and large, the show is about young, largely interchangeable white guys trying to score, with a few Wall Street scenes thrown in for good measure.

I viewed two episodes of The $treet, and neither of them blew me away. I liked the second episode better than the first, though. In the pilot, Jack is quickly established as one of the workers at the firm with morals. He also talks about sex the least of the workers there. To that end, he’s the most appealing character on the show. Yes, there is so much sex talk on The $treet that I quickly grew tired of it. Since it’s network television, they can’t actually show any of it, so all they can do is talk about past and potential sexual experiences, who’s good in bed, having sex. And they talk and talk and talk. Frankly, it gets boring.

There are some amusing lines in The $treet, but they’re amusing in the same way locker room humor is amusing. After a while, it gets old. Nevertheless, some lines do warrant mentioning. For example, in one episode, Adam has started dating a stripper who performs dressed as Xena the Warrior Princess. At one point in the episode, Adam tells Freddie that he is afraid the relationship is moving too fast. This prompts Freddie to reply, "Dude, the chick is a medieval, nymphyte stripper. Fast is not an issue."

In that same scene, Adam tells Freddie that his girlfriend is looking for a threesome, but he doesn’t really want to participate in one. Freddie tells Adam, "If you pass on a threesome, you should turn in your nads, and call it a life." And then there’s another scene, which reveals Freddie’s fresh outlook on marriage: "Impulse marriages are for the illegal and terminally ill. For everyone else, they’re jokes."

Even when I’m relaying these lines right now, they don’t strike me as all that great. Yet these were some of the better lines in the two episodes of The $treet I saw, and these types of lines seem typical of the series. When the show ventures past the realm of sexual innuendo, and into the world of Wall Street and some actual human-interest stories, there are some entertaining parts. In the second episode, for example, the main plot of the show saw the CEO of a company that traded on Wall Street die. Jack had previously dated the daughter of the CEO, and they had remained fairly close.

In a state of confusion, the daughter (who was played by Molly Ringwald in an appealing, if too brief, guest turn) told Jack some information about the company that she should have kept private. Had Jack disclosed the information to the rest of his firm, could have made him a lot of money and assured his company’s financial success. The will-he-or-won’t-he-tell element, and how Jack’s silence impacted the firm, made for a fairly engrossing plot. However, this was balanced with an absolutely ridiculous subplot that had Freddie running an office pool where the subject of the betting was how long Tim’s penis was. It was stupid, and didn’t mesh with the other, more mature plot.

FOX executives no doubt envisioned The $treet as a way to lure viewers away from cable and back to network television. However, the show, in a way, points out everything that’s wrong with network television today. It takes more than sex jokes to make people watch. Sure, they may tune in once, but after the initial shock value, there needs to be something that gives the audience reason to come back. Unfortunately, The $treet is so full of sophomoric sexual themes that it hides what could be, with a little nursing, a very entertaining drama. If the writers let the core of the show shine through, and remove these high school-level high jinks, The $treet could become a hit. Tune in, and see what I mean. The show airs Wednesdays at 9 PM on FOX, which is located at both Channel 5 and Channel 23 here at Marist.