I got a chance to watch the pilot for NBC’s new show The Philanthropist, which debuts tonight at 10PM/9C, and I have to say while I was quite entertained for most of it , I was also somewhat underwhelmed as well. Its not that the show is bad or anything, quite the contrary. It has great production value, lots of action, a mostly engaging cast and even a morale. I just prefer my morals slightly less “in your face.”
By way of backstory, The Philanthropist follows the adventures of Billionaire playboy Teddy Rist, the “99th-richest man in the world” and his search for the meaning of it all after his son dies tragically a year prior. Teddy is undergoing a “crisis of conscience” and realizes that just writing a check isn’t enough anymore, he needs to “do something” in order to make a difference in the world. While I applaud that sentiment, more people should really feel that way, I question what follows and how Teddy decides to satisfy this need.
During the course of the show, Teddy decideds that the only way he can help is by personally delivering a much needed vaccine to a village in Nigeria. The village, coincidentally, where a boy he thought he saved during an earlier flood but is now missing, lives. So, Teddy decides he will deliver the vaccine to the boy’s villiage and make sure the boy is alive and well in the process. You get it, right? He couldn’t save his own son and now he must save this child in order to be redeemed.
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