MIXED MEDIA
'CSI' producer Bruckheimer hits pay dirt again
By Mike Hughes
Gannett News Service
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| From left, Anthony LaPaglia, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Eric Close and Poppy Montgomery team up on "Without a Trace," which airs Thursday on CBS.
CBS 'Without a Trace' 9 p.m. Thursdays CBS |
The exception is CBS' new drama "Without a Trace," about a squad within the FBI that deals with missing persons. In its first three months in that time slot (9 p.m. Thursdays), ratings have been resoundingly adequate.
Along the way, people have decided producer Jerry Bruckheimer might know what he's doing after all.
"I'm a big fan of process," says Bruckheimer. "If you show the process and get the verisimilitude, people will be interested."
That notion has worked for three Bruckheimer series now on CBS — "CSI" (9 p.m. Thursdays), "CSI: Miami" (10 p.m. Mondays) and "Without a Trace." They have cranial stories that trace the investigation process. They're also far removed from his movie style.
Ever since 1984's "Beverly Hills Cop" and 1986's "Top Gun," Bruckheimer has lived at the top of box office lists.
To some people, his movies are simply loud ("Bad Boys," "Gone in 60 Seconds") or dumb ("Pearl Harbor," "Armageddon"). Explosions and chases look great on a big screen, but can't save a TV show.
Others have a different view of Bruckheimer.
"He has one of the most intellectual minds in Hollywood," says screenwriter Ron Bass ("Waiting to Exhale," "How Stella Got Her Groove Back," "Snow Falling on Cedars.")
Bass wrote "Dangerous Minds," one of the occasional Bruckheimer films that made viewers think. Other Bruckheimer films have included "Crimson Tide," "The Rock" and "Remember the Titans."
Still, his first TV series and movies drew shrugs. Then a former Las Vegas tram operator pitched him a script about crime-scene investigators in the Nevada gambling mecca.
"For me, it was something fresh and different," Bruckheimer says. "Anthony Zuiker had such an interesting approach."
Zuiker's "CSI" premiered with little action and much science. It was a surprise hit.
This season, Bruckheimer added "CSI: Miami" and "Without a Trace." To create the latter, he hired Hank Steinberg, a young writer whose previous scripts had been cable movies about Roger Maris and Robert Kennedy.
"Hank's someone we've had our eye on for a long time," he says.
The casting was also unusual. The two top-billed stars, Anthony LaPaglia and Poppy Montgomery, are Australian. The third, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, is from England and received an Academy Award nomination for 1996's "Secrets and Lies."
LaPaglia's only other series was "Murder One," also in 1996.
"I was not emotionally equipped for it," he says. "I was unsuspecting at the time of how much a TV series can take out of an actor."
He was an unconventional choice for the role. So were William Petersen for "CSI" and many of the movie stars.
"Look at Nicolas Cage in 'The Rock,' " Bruckheimer says. "Look at a young actor like Tom Cruise in 'Top Gun' or Ben Affleck (in "Armageddon") or Josh Hartnett (in "Pearl Harbor").
In addition to "Without a Trace's" unusual casting (other regulars include Eric Close and Enrique Murciano), it also has complex stories. "The show is still evolving," Bruckheimer says. "We're planning to deepen the stories just as we did with 'CSI.' "
For now, the show is working. In the final week of the November "sweeps" ratings period, "Without a Trace" had a 9.2 Nielsen rating, representing 9.2 percent of TV homes.
With those ratings, don't expect Bruckheimer's show to disappear without a trace anytime soon.
