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Peter Benchley's "Amazon"

© J. l.

YAWN! Seems Canadian television is getting so desperate for a winning series we're staring to rip off American classic television. Remember "Gilligan's Island", where a bunch of pleasure cruisers get lost on an island for years? Well, turn that into an Amazon jungle, add some bloodthirsty natives, and the occasional guest star (how they get onto the island is anyone's guess), and you've got Peter Benchley's "Amazon", a new program from Alliance-Atlantis. Come to think of it, that might be a little closer to "Lord of the Flies".

The cast has been created from some of the most forgettable and most forgotten of Hollywood and Canada's stars. Most forgettable? C. Thomas Howell. After doing a number of poorly received movies, Howell landed himself a role in "Amazon" as, what else, a doctor. The other five actors to make up the main cast are either never-beens, or "who'd'ya say that was"'s: Carol Alt, Fabiana Udenio, Chris Martin, Rob Stewart, and Tyler Haynes. What good a stewardess, an opera singer, a mechanic, a high-school teacher, and a teenager will be is anyone's guess. Maybe the stewardess can hand out peanuts to the local wildlife?

That aside, the cast is the best part of the movie. Seven people survive the crash (in perfect condition no less) and just happen to be left on the island because they all manage to "miss" the rescue mission: there's the egotistical doctor, the teacher dying from a terminal illness, the teenager separated from his parents, the jet-setting opera singer, the auto mechanic who won a once in a lifetime trip, the irritating heavy-set man, the flight attendant, and the hot-shot heart surgeon. Of course, the irritating man gets eaten for breakfast by the local tribe of natives.

Will it work? Who knows. Already this season, networks have cancelled the Canadian-based "Harsh Realm", a series from "The X Files" creator Chris Carter, sending it's stars back out onto the street to look for work. There is no earthly reason to think that "Amazon" will last long enough to produce a second season. Produced in Canada and being sold for syndication in the US, the series apparently has a 22 episode commitment for WIC's Canadian stations. If it does get cancelled, I find myself hoping that the entire group of six is either inducted into the native tribe, or decides to try swimming through the piranha-infested waters to find the shore.

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