In the first episode of the Fox Network's Action producer Peter Dragon (Jay Mohr) almost runs down prostitute Wendy Ward (Illeana Douglas) on his way to the premiere of his $100-million gorefest Slow Torture. The movie tanks; Dragon embarks on a week-long alcohol and drug-fuelled orgy with Douglas and others; and then he hires the hooker as his first lieutenant. Ho ho, very satirical. Pre-post-modern show business used to boast that "everything about it is appealing," but today it delights in persuading us (as if we needed much persuasion) that everything about it stinks of sulphur.

Infernal Hollywood has been the subject of recent movies good, bad and ugly—Swimming With Sharks, The Player, An Alan Smithee Film—and HBO's already classic The Larry Sanders Show. Action was created for HBO, but ended up pushing Fox's (and network TV's) already distended envelope.

This has necessitated some changes;"f---" becomes "bleep!" and the actors' lips are pixilated, so we can't prove they're saying the naughty words this limning actually accentuates. And the censorship of the fourth episode, "Blowhard"—10 frames suggesting fellatio were excised—gave Chris Ofili's The Holy Virgin Mary dungheap a run for its money as First Amendment Martyr of the Week.

The in-joke within Action's joke, the icing on its pomo cake, if you will, is that it is produced by Joel Silver, himself the producer of the Die Hard and Lethal Weapon franchises, a man whose reputation for ruthless amorality is legendary—and who in turn is the model for Peter Dragon.

We are not supposed to hate Dragon, however. As in Mel Gibson's Payback, we are invited to "root for the bad guy." Unfortunately, they're all bad guys—from the commissary waiter who urinates in Dragon's Cobb salad, to Dragon's executive producer, a saturnine gay (based on Fox co-founder Barry Diller) who warns him that if he dares claim paternity of his own son (Diller having stolen Dragon's wife), Diller will make sure he never eats lunch in that town again. The only moral presence in the show is former child star Ward, the proverbial hooker with heart of gold—or at least an eye for a good script.

Dragon is only giving "action," and as Kevin Spacey says in Swimming With Sharks, "You've gotta give action to get action." Or else suffer being a passive recipient—as Dragon discovers in "Blowhard." Having hired beefcake Cole Ricardi (Bruce Willis, anyone?) to star in his new high-concept flick Beverly Hills Gun Club (maniac shoots up zoo, leaking viscera abounds) Dragon discovers to his horror that Ricardi is desperate to come out of the closet. Dragon is disgusted—and just as desperate. He tells Ricardi that he too is "a friend of Dorothy" but self-outing would be commercial suicide for them both. Ricardi is so touched he assumes the position Fox wouldn't let us see.

Dragon, already reeling from his newly-discovered sexual ambiguity, is devastated when Gun Club's backers inform him that Ricardi is too old for the part and must be dropped. But Dragon has given his "girlfriend" a $10-million "pay or play" deal, so he implores him to flee Tinseltown for "off-off-off" Broadway. Mission accomplished. Unfortunately, a newly radicalized Ricardi then outs both himself and Dragon on network TV. Gosh, isn't that a kick in the pants.

Is everyone is Hollywood light in the loafers? That's certainly the impression one gets from Action. Dragon's toadying vice-president is almost gossamer; and Ward isn't averse to three-ways, if the money's right. Gay activists complained bitterly of the network's circumcision of "Blowhard" but are seemingly oblivious of Action's casual conflation of sexual inversion with cruelty. Gays have previously claimed to be a "gentle, angry people," but "nice guys finish last," as Green Day reminds us in Action's pilot, and perhaps homosexuality isn't just for creampuffs anymore.

When cruelty becomes normative, it loses its power to shock, or even to titillate, which explains why Action is a failure. Jay Mohr is as good a rotter as he was in Jerry Maguire, and sure, the one-liners are as zingfully fresh as only Hollywood's best script doctors can write. (My favourite: when the Barry Diller character tells Dragon the only way he can raise money for Gun Club is to sell his soul to the Devil, Dragon replies, "How much are you gonna give me for it?") But Action's hellhounds are straw dogs, and without good to scandalize, evil becomes just another attitude. Besides, the only laughter in Hell comes from Satan; and he has yet to become a featured television character, not even on the Fox Network. BCR

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