Does everyone understand that the brain of Michael Wiseman has been rescued from a fatal accident and placed into the top-secret artificial body of Michael Newman? And that, "under penalty of death," he has to never ever speak to his wife and daughter again? Or supposedly someone will kill him? Yes? Good. So CBS, this is your cue to STOP showing the same freaking bit of film over and over again.
"Before," on Now and Again an arrogant handsome guy looks at a house with -- and for love from -- Lisa, and asks her out on a date. She's into it.
The setting: A dark, sleek restaurant, candle-lit and intimate. At a table are Lisa and the Handsome Arrogant Guy. He's looking at photos of houses and trotting out his catalogue of appreciative groans and grunts. Maybe he's practicing for later. "Mmm...ah...old! I like old." Lisa says, "I've got lots of old." That makes no sense, but I can guess they're talking about houses and not doing it -- yet. The HAG looks at more photos, which we don't get to see. "Mmm. Not for me. Ooh, not for me. So, tell me about your husband. He must be one well-adjusted fella. And this one can't look as good as it does in the picture." There's a long pause, and then the HAG says, "You're not answering my question." Lisa pauses some more for "dramatic effect," and says "I don't know about this property." See what she just did? She avoided the question! HAG says, "This game isn't going to work if you force me to play it by myself." Hey, no one will ever force you to play with yourself, HAG! That's for you to do at your own discretion. Lisa says she's a widow. HAG says, "Oh...ahh..I saw the ring, so jerks like me will know whether to pick you up." Isn't "I'm sorry" an acceptable response to what Lisa said? I thought so. Lisa asks, "You thought I was married?" Well, you do wear the ring! Then HAG slides into unctuous-n-oily mode and says, "I like married women. I've had great luck with married women. Married women with a little bit of itch. They just want to hook up with someone, uh..." and he shoots Lisa a look. Lisa swallows her bile and says, "I have to go...wash. I have to go wash with a wire brush."
Cut to the street where Lisa is high-tailing it away from the HAG. "Lisa! I still wanna buy a house!" Lisa shoots back, "Blow it out your..."
Theme song! "Now and Again! Unh! We only want what we can't have, and what we can't have, ya dig.."
After the ads, including one for the miniseries about the as-yet-unsolved murder of JonBenet Ramsey starring Ann-Margaret and Kris Kristofferson (VCR alert! Just kidding.), the scene is set in Washington Square Park. It's too bad that this totally uncool show is shot on location in New York. Can't they have given another city publicity instead? Rudy Giuliani must be a fan of lame CBS shows or something. Anyway, Artificial Guy and Dr. M.astermind are sitting (in a tree!) on a park bench. You can see their breath. A.G. is staring at the pigeons because "he's jealous of them." Pigeons get to eat breadcrumbs. And they're probably universally despised less than this show is. Dr. M. is waiting to talk to someone. Right on cue, someone walks up and Dr. M. gets off the bench to face him, like a ho-hum showdown in the CBS Corral. POTUS wants to talk to Dr. M. "POTUS wants to talk to me? For how long?" "Well, it's POTUS -- ten minutes, tops." A.G. whines, "But mom said you couldn't play with your friends today, because you have to baby-sit me." Someone says, "This isn't a high school dance -- this is POTUS." Dr. M. squats in front of A.G., who's still sitting on the bench, and asks him to stay put. A.G., dumber than a box of rocks, asks, "What's a 'POTUS'?" Ooh, I know, I know! Dr. M. grits his teeth and says, "The 'O' stands for of, and the 'T' stands for the." A.G., so not-funny, says "Thanks Vanna, I'd like to buy a vowel." OH MY GOD, 'POTUS' stands for he President of the United States, okay! ["Yeah, doesn't A.G. watch The West Wing?" -- Wing Chun] But A.G. can't go along. A rather annoying bargaining session takes place, which, if A.G. really feared for his life, would never happen. A.G. is granted permission to wander around two square blocks for fifteen minutes, and if Dr. M. hears that A.G. drew any attention to himself he'll "open (A.G.) up and forget the anesthesia, if you know what I mean." A.G. hugs him at this. So cuddly!
So A.G. is cruising up Fifth Avenue and sees a flower shop. A sing in the window reads, "Valentine's Day is coming!" I hate Valentine's Day. A.G. goes in and a young woman with a bad attitude (just like me!) is behind the desk with headphones on. A.G. wants to send a dozen white roses to his wife. She pushes the card and a form at him and says, all nice and surly, "That'll be $38...Mister Wise Man." A.G. gets his panties in a wad and says, "Oh no, I'm Newman -- my wife is Wiseman. She kept her maiden name. Big bone of contention in the marriage." Who cares? No one. Then A.G. makes a big show of forgetting his wallet and says he remembers his Visa card number, can he use that? The girl, god bless her, says no. And says no again. When A.G. says he doesn't understand, she says "No. It's a word. It means unh-uh." You ROCK, Flower Shop Girl! Then A.G. posits that if he called the order in, he wouldn't have to produce the card. "You're right," says F.S.G., tossing him a business card. "Call it in." He asks to borrow the phone on he desk and she tells him with a great half-smirk on her face that the phone there is for incoming calls, and if he uses it to call her, she won't be able to answer it to talk to him. We get a shot of A.G.'s face that says, "I hate you, Flower Shop Girl." But I love you, Flower Shop Girl! Don't ever change.
A.G. exits the shop and looks across the street so intensely that I think something interesting might actually happen. No such luck.
A.G. cruises into his old bank to try and make a withdrawal. Way to not draw attention to yourself, A.G.! He has a long, boring, patronizing conversation with the bank teller about how if his signature matches, he should be allowed to make a withdrawal without ID. Julia, the bank teller, is no Flower Shop Girl and goes along with him. Wuss. He gets the money to pay for the flowers and bank robbers come in. Wearing masks of former presidents. Just like in the Patrick Swayze movie Point Break. Julia says, "Damn, a robbery." A.G. says he had pressing engagements himself. What a pair of cool cucumbers! Abe Lincoln, spokesperson for the robbers, tells everyone to get into the safe. Baa baa, off they go.
In the safe, Abe Lincoln reminds them, "No heroics!" and says that the police will set them free soon. What nice robbers! In Point Break people got killed. The bank manager, a wannabe Phillip Seymour Hoffman, steps up and tells everyone to feel safe, there's plenty of air. A.G. asks Julia the time. It's now 10:05 AM. A big, fat man collapses anyway, in spite of all the air. A lady rushes up (extras much?) and says she is a doctor. She begins to perform CPR. A.G. offers his help and she tersely says, "You can open that door. I have to get this guy to a hospital." A.G. says, sotto voce, "Sorry, Doc," and begins to lean on the safe door. A piano and cymbal start up and the bank manager intones a monologue about how the safe door has a million bolts in it and is impossible to open and the police will be there at any minute. This is cut with shots of the safe door groaning and bolts flying out and the door slowly, slowly opening as A.G. leans on it. Then this cuts to the security camera footage of A.G. finally opening the door, the cops arriving and asking who blasted the door open, A.G. asking the time, leaning it's 10:22 AM, saying, "Oh man," and taking off.
ANOTHER movie about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings? One was more than enough.
Cut to Lisa, lying on her bed at home. Bling-blong! That's the doorbell. It's a deliveryman, with a dozen white roses. Who from? A "secret admirer." Lisa slams the door in his face. Bling-blong bling-blong! Lisa gets the door again. The delivery man says, "Lady, I'm not allowed to take these back!" She snaps, "Give them to me," slams the door shut on him, takes the roses to the kitchen trash and tosses them in. She then does a strange jerky-head victory smirk. She thinks she's dissing the HAG, but she's wrong! Oh yes she is!
Back at the gilded gym, A.G. is getting yelled at by Dr. M. He is mad at A.G. for many reasons -- for running off and making him wait, for sending flowers to his wife, and for the whole busting-down-the-safe-door thing. A.G., all third-person, says, "What a radical idea, sending flowers to his wife on Valentine's Day. What'll he do , send her a card?" Dr. M. is all, "Do you know what POTUS said?" No. Anyone care? Not really. I'll tell you, though: The program that funds the A.G. project is going to be under review by a top-secret branch of the Pentagon. The review will be "critical" -- so critical, in fact, that Dr. M. has to enunciate very carefully: "Cri-Ti-Cal!" A.G. busts on him for saying "critical" like that; now I don't have to. Dr. M. worries some more, saying, like a total girl, "I don't think the Pentagon will look kindly on this. I just don't!" A.G. says, "I saved that man's life! You are cold." Um, sorry, but the cops arrived just as A.G. got the safe door open -- how is that "saving"? "Helping," maybe. Dr. M.'s cell phone rings. "Yes! No. No, you know we don't have phones here. Well, bring one over." Hooray! TV!
At the real estate office, HAG is parked at Lisa's desk. Lisa isn't happy to see him. She lets him hang at her desk reading the Times as she gossips with her office cronies about him. He's a "qualified buyer," and looked sad when he arrived at the office that morning to wait for Lisa. Lisa tells them about his clumsy seduction technique, and they still want her to sell him a house. That's the business! So Lisa sucks it up and decides to work with him.
Cut to Lisa's car. She and HAG are going to look at another house. He, all arrogant and handsome, asks, "Aren't you flattered?" Will men never understand that having someone want to bone you is not a cause for celebration? Lisa mentions the white roses and he's all like, white roses? Wha? Who sends white roses? I'm not your secret admirer! Lisa snaps that she loves white roses and her husband always used to...oh.
Back at the Gilded Gym, A.G. and Dr. M. are watching TV. But A.G. doesn't look ecstatic as he should, because the news is on and they're showing the security tape of him opening the bank's safe door. The newscaster (I ask again, extras much in this episode?) describes the scenario and says that the police are asking for the public's help. I'm sorry, but can't Julia the bank teller freaking remember what happened? I remember their conversation -- wouldn't she remember what happened right before the robbery? And to whom she was talking? A.G. looks all worried, wrinkling up his stupid head. God, this show is ridiculous.
After the ads, we land back at the Gilded Gym. Dr. M. is throwing another temper tantrum. The good news is that there's no footage of A.G.'s face. The bad news is that every newspaper in America will have the image of him pushing the safe door open. "What can we do?" asks A.G., and Dr. M. gets really mad: "'We'? WE didn't do this. You weren't thinking about ME at all!" A.G. gets hysterical and yells, "Kill me now, then! That would be preferable to this!" Dr. M. is like, "Don't tempt me!" Oy. Then Dr. M. remembers that new news does happen and that this should all blow over eventually, so until they get their funding approved, A.G. is "not to leave this townhouse" and either Dr. M. or someone else will be with A.G. at all times. Kind of like jail -- an incredibly plush, luxurious jail, but still jail. Somewhere, a tiny violin plays. Oh, that was just me rubbing my two fingers together.
Lisa comes in the door and yells, "Heather, I'm home!" Heather's not there! I am pissed. There's a note on the mirror that reads, "Call the bank manager." Lisa doesn't get it and says, "Sorry fella, you're out of luck." She thinks it's HAG again. Then she gets the receipt off the roses in the trash.
On the phone now, Lisa is trying to find out who sold her the flowers. The person paid cash. Would Lisa like to speak to the person who actually sold the flowers? Yeah, put Flower Shop Girl on! She remembers it was a man who said he was Lisa's husband. His name? Redford. What did he look like? Someone named Redford. Oh, A.G. WISHES. Somewhere, Robert Redford is cracking up.
Now Lisa's in bed. The phone rings, she gets it, and the man on the other end asks to speak to Mr. Wiseman. Who is it? What time is it? It's a little after 11 PM. CBS, not everyone is fast asleep by 11 PM! It's the bank manager, calling from his own home to ask about Mr. Wiseman who had made a withdrawal right before the robbery. This is all highly dubious. Anyhow, Lisa says her husband has been dead for a year, the bank manager blurts out that the signatures matched perfectly, then he says he can't believe he said that. Then he promises to make up the difference in the account and hangs up. How totally unlike any bank manager I've ever met in my life.
Now, it's morning, and Lisa and HAG are cruising around in her car. She's preoccupied and he notices. She describes the situation and he suggests that if it was Robert Redford who sent her flowers, perhaps it was Paul Newman who withdrew the cash from the bank. Lisa tee-hees, then gets a clue and suspects Mr. Newman, that strange pretty-boy that's always mixed in whatever craziness is going on in her life. There's a funny shot of her hand on her face as she drives, fingers to mouth in a noiseless "gasp!" gesture.
NOW Lisa's hauling the HAG back to the real estate office at the end of the day. She's still distracted and he points it out, again, by offering to buy all five houses they looked at today. She doesn't even hear him say that and instead busts out with a theory that, since the IRS would have her late husband's signature on file, Newman would be able to get it and forge it. And what about the white roses? The HAG suggests that she go confront Newman, and she goes into aww-shucks mode until he reminds her that she told him to blow it out his butt when he hit on her. So, empowered or something, Lisa calls home to tell the non-present Heather to order a pizza because Lisa's got some confrontin' to do! And yes, she'll keep her cell phone on, Daughter-Mother-Heather.
At the Gilded Gym, Dr. M. emerges from the bathroom in a very Hef-y robe and pajamas. A.G. is flopped on the bed, flipping through the latest issue of Seventeen. Just kidding. A.G. asks, "Whatcha readin'?" Dr. M. puts down his hardback book and, like a total smitty, says he isn't there to provide "conversation or companionship." Dr. Dude, go watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer and take a lesson from Giles, okay? And may I just say I hate when books are in a scene but the audience doesn't get to see what the title is? Remember in The Sixth Sense when Mrs. Bruce Willis gave her shop-boy a book for a gift and pointed out, "It's a first edition"? I was like, "OF WHAT!?" JUST SOME BOOK? That has no significance! It's stupid. Reading is power!
Then, buzz buzz goes the doorbell. Who could that be? It's Lisa! After A.G. refuses to speak to her (things are crazy right now with the pictures of his back on the front page of the papers and everything), Lisa just LEANS of the buzzer with every ounce of girl power she has. I'm really rooting for her to come in and check out Dr. M. in his sexy robe and have some hilarious Three's Company type of misunderstanding, but no such luck. Instead, Dr. M. tells A.G. to open the door (giving him the code to do so) and tell Lisa to bug off forever. Oh, and if they try to take off? He'll kill them both. We all know Dr. M. is no killer. Giles has a higher body count than Dr. M.. So Dr. M. goes and hides in the closet, all Blue Velvet, to watch them.
Lisa comes in and tells A.G. off. She also busts on the décor of the Gilded Gym, cracking, "Who's your decorator? Kafka?" Not bad. A.G. is such an idiot he insists, "I didn't steal $40!" Um, how did you KNOW it was $40, then? Lisa says that if A.G. tries to mess with her again; she has witnesses (and gives a shout-out to the flower shop girl!) and she'll "contact the authorities." Then she sees herself out. I guess she didn't need the code to get out. A.G. is all sad, and Dr. M. comes out of the closet (no comment) and says that wasn't the scene he had imagined, but that he can't argue with the results. He adds, "Now kiss me, you fool!" Just kidding.
Cut to Uncle Roger at the bank. He just happens to insure the bank the safe door of which got ruined by A.G. Gee, New York is a small town! Roger is being nice but sticking it to the manager (extras much?) by saying that the company doesn't have to pay for the safe door because "a superhuman person pushed it open. We can't set the precedent of paying off because Captain America came by and was rough on the furniture!" Chuckle! Not.
Cut to a Daily News truck. A man tosses a bundle of papers to the sidewalk. The camera zooms over to show us the headline: "BANK MANAGER RECOUNTS, Super guy must have had some help with faulty vault engineering." There's also a photo of the bank manager. I so wish I was kidding. What would some better headlines be, if this were in fact a page-one item? How about, "Bank places blame on Batman!" or, "Not by the strength of his chinny-chin-chin!" or my favorite, "Now and Again Sucks Ass!"