MovieChat Forums > Nowhere Man (1995) Discussion > Anyone else who just gets mad at this?

Anyone else who just gets mad at this?

posted 15 years ago by dogge84
27 replies | jump to latest

I have seen 7 episodes of this crap now and it is just so annoying. I mean, isn't this just tooooo incredible for one to buy? Yeah we get it, there is an organization that is so powerful it can erase your existence and get to anyone you've ever known. But making your WIFE and DYING MOTHER deny they ever knew you? And in one episode Tom ends up in a town full of people who also had their existence erased and who want to make a new life in this town (= incredibly bad idea for an episode) and in another a very very very very annoying man who I just want to shoot from the face of the earth is writing scenes for a television show from Tom's life!? Knowing EXACTLY the dialouge Tom and his wife/Tom and his wife's new husband/Tom and the waiter in the restaurant had (=incredibly hard to buy and just stupid).

So, I think the idea for this show is just plain bad. I mean why, for the love of god WHY, doesn't this organization just kidnap Tom and force him to give them the negatives, or kidnap his wife for the same reason? Why do they waste time and money (and must be an incredible amount of money) on following Tom around and just messing with his life? And how did they get these people to deny ever meeting Tom? And in the second episode they even get two children to deny ever meeting their own mother????

And why am I wasting my time watching this show and even worse, writing this much about on the internet!?

It's better to be dead and cool than alive and uncool

[–] P_Cornelius 15 years ago

Keep watching.

[–] AdmrlLocke 15 years ago

If Paul recommends the show, then in my experience it's probably something I'd enjoy, although your taste might vary.

And why am I wasting my time watching this show and even worse, writing this much about on the internet!?

That's a good question. Have you figured out the answer yet?

[–] P_Cornelius 15 years ago

Hey, admiral, nice to see you pop up on the NOWHERE MAN board. I'll tell you what I really liked about NOWHERE MAN. It gives us a snapshot of society in the process of making a huge cultural/technological shift. There are no ubiquitous cell phones (the pay phone still plays a central role in NOWHERE MAN plots!). And while the internet is in play, the series manages to overestimate AND underestimate what it would come to do--in the same episode! And you might remember what a fad Virtual Reality was in the mid 90s. NOWHERE MAN has a preoccupation with VR. (In fact, there was another series on UPN, I think, about the same time, called VR5.)

I seem to remember when NM was airing on UPN that it was hugely difficult to watch it. At least on my local affiliate, which always seemed to bump it to the wee hours of the morning (this before DVR, of course) in order to show basketball games. Plus, UPN itself only served fresh eps sporadically. Like a great deal of good TV, the network stupidly killed what could have been a hit series for them. As I also remember it, the critics loved this show.

[–] AdmrlLocke 15 years ago

Hey Paul. I checked here to see about the show and then saw the board so I looked at the first thread, and there you were!

I hate when local affiliates preempt national shows for local garbage. In Iowa the locals often preempted good TV for local high school sports. High school sports?!

I remember VR5! That was a fascination show and David McCallum played the father! Like Nowhere Man it didn't last long. I wonder if either show might have survived today on cable, like on USA, or maybe Stupyfy (the network formerly known as Sci Fi)?

[–] P_Cornelius 15 years ago

NM and VR5, oddly, would probably be a no go on sighfi, which prefers "reality" ghost hunters and teeny fare. The best hope would probably be on USA. NOWHERE MAN was good enough that it might have had a BETTER chance had it aired on CBS, NBC, or ABC. With a little exposure, NM would have been the hit LOST was six years earlier.

[–] AdmrlLocke 15 years ago

NM and VR5, oddly, would probably be a no go on sighfi, which prefers "reality" ghost hunters and teeny fare. The best hope would probably be on USA. NOWHERE MAN was good enough that it might have had a BETTER chance had it aired on CBS, NBC, or ABC. With a little exposure, NM would have been the hit LOST was six years earlier.

Oh, you mean on Stupyfy? Yes, it was stupefyingly stupid to spend all the money to change the name from Sci Fi so that nobody could criticize the executives for running wrestling where it doesn't below, and then to spend millions advertising on Stupyfy to persuade Sci Fi viewers that it still has all the same sort of shows. Never (outside of government of course( has anyone wasted more income for no other purpose than to quash criticism.

The new season of Eureka started on Friday night (a move from Tuesday) and I enjoyed it. The new Warehouse 13 started Tuesday night and I found it mildly diverting.

It does seem like the geniuses who ran NBC into the ground and turned into a joke of a network now want to bring the same genius to Sci Fi. I suppose they won't feel happy until they've destroyed USA too.

[–] P_Cornelius 15 years ago

Yep. The people at NBC are idiots. They completely gutted the premiere of an excellent series this spring, KINGS, which they have been burning off on Saturday nights without any promos. NBC deserves to fail. I've all but stopped watching the channel. I did watch the Warehouse. Actually, it was hard to miss it. I saw it pop up on several NBC channels. I think it played on USA and it even was on that Oprah network, Oxygen, when I channeled surfed past it the other night. As the Oxygen screening reveals, syfy wants a new target demographic. Women. Younger women. That's why scifi hates science fiction and became syfy, I guess.

[–] coroner83 12 years ago

http://translate.google.com/#pl|en|syf

[–] SpaceMountainMike 8 years ago

syfy wants a new target demographic. Women.

They should air the Incredible Hulk (the TV show not any of the movies) because the producer said in a DVD commentary that the biggest demographic was adult women.

_______________

My iMDB profile http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4297325/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

[–] Joel_S 14 years ago

I remember the mid 90s like yesterday. The internet, emailing, virtual reality fad, voicemail, mainstream personal cell phones....these where the cutting edge technological breakthroughs of 1995...not everyone was yet caught up with it, but it was part of the lexicon of the culture.

it was like what ipods, Tivo, blue-ray disc players, facebook, and led flatscreen TVs are today.

[–] P_Cornelius 14 years ago

Joel_S

Amazing, isn't it, that the very texture of society itself changes so violently, so quickly, and so much with the avalanche of technological innovation. Eventually, the human psyche will NOT adapt. And, maybe, that, too, is what NM was all about. We disembody our experiences and disembody our minds.

[–] laustcawz-789-925423 13 years ago

Actually, "VR5" (great show) was on FOX.

[–] Tridentmovies 15 years ago

"I have seen 7 episodes of this crap now and it is just so annoying."

You have seen 7 episodes and yet you're wondering WHY they do certain things? That's pretty stupid, isn't it? Has it occurred to you that the reasons may lay beyond episode 7?

***

"So, I think the idea for this show is just plain bad. I mean why, for the love of god WHY, doesn't this organization just kidnap Tom and force him to give them the negatives, or kidnap his wife for the same reason?"

Yeah, those ideas are a lot better for a show. Except for the obvious fact that if they make him give the negatives, the show would be OVER. Get it?
And again, the reasons why they don't kidnap him may be explained if you bothered to watch beyond episode 7. Or do you always want all your answers in the pilot?

Your confusion is understandable, however, since you actually think the purpose of life is to be cool.

[–] MovieCriticMarvelfan 15 years ago

So, I think the idea for this show is just plain bad.

It's a brilliant show plus come on it's a treat to see Bruce Greenwood.

[QUOTE
I mean why, for the love of god WHY, doesn't this organization just kidnap Tom and force him to give them the negatives, or kidnap his wife for the same reason?
[/QUOTE]

That could work too but do you think Tom would ever give up the negatives even in a situation like that?

Why do they waste time and money (and must be an incredible amount of money) on following Tom around and just messing with his life?

Because it probably would attract too much attention to kill the guy and take the information from him.

And how did they get these people to deny ever meeting Tom?

LMAO. Um let's see harassment, possible beatings, jail, torture, and death seems like denying someone their existence facing any of these options and more would seem easy.

"We have guided missiles and misguided men."

[–] wtdk123 14 years ago

The show isn't about the negatives (as you'll discover as you move forward) that Veil has--it's about what Veil doesn't have and about what his real identity is which is revealed in the last three episodes of the series. It had a much broader canvas than the story presented in the pilot--almost everything you learn about Thomas Veil in the pilot is misdirection.

[–] NightTrekker 15 years ago

So, I think the idea for this show is just plain bad. I mean why, for the love of god WHY, doesn't this organization just kidnap Tom and force him to give them the negatives, or kidnap his wife for the same reason? Why do they waste time and money (and must be an incredible amount of money) on following Tom around and just messing with his life? And how did they get these people to deny ever meeting Tom?

Short answer: keep watching.

Longer answer: Nowhere Man, like The Prisoner, is an allegory.

[–] 15 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Zz9pza 15 years ago

Its not about the negatives, its about Tom, I'm guessing that he has already had his memory altered in the past, and now they need to keep him on the run protecting the negatives to prevent the real problem from surfacing. Given all that theroy, why they don't just cap him I'll never know, I guess because the series would have lasted 22 minutes. I like it because it is the flip side of the coin of an equally odd show called The Prisoner.

I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.

[–] scatcc 14 years ago

>Given all that theroy, why they don't just cap him I'll never know

oh guys... they wanted HIS cooperation! thats all whats behind this...

[–] mulhollandpsycho 14 years ago

I'll just answer your final question: Because you want attention.

[–] drloomis666 14 years ago

7 episodes is'nt even half a season.Your hardly giving the show a chance.Its explained much later how they were able to make his wife and dying mother deny they ever knew him in the final episode.And it was done in a way that i did not expect.They left it on a great cliffhanger that made me wanting more.Unfortunately the powers that be were to stupid to know what a potential cult classic they had on their hands.I'd have loved to have seen what this show would havd done given a few more seasons.

"You dont know what death is" Sam Loomis Halloween 2

[–] unstabledavid 13 years ago

i think you need an imagination to enjoy science FICTION this show would have lasted much longer on any other network and, like other comments ive read this show was bounced all over different time slots.... i religously taped each episodes and got many of my co-workers hooked..of course it wasnt perfect some (not that much) of the dialoge was cheesy but so was star trek and star wars so whats your point? and by the way tv guide called it the coolest show on tv...upn cancelled it and replaced it with a gem called "homeboys from outerspace" lol i kid you not

[–] myplanetrocks 13 years ago

I am only annoyed that it got cancelled and was cut short. Thanks god they released the dvd set!

To whomever posted about Vr.5--that was a good one too!