Commentary

How'd I Like 'Peter Pan'? Sorry, But I Have A Life

You didn’t really expect me to sit there for three hours watching this thing, did you?

It’s one of the cardinal rules in a “profession” in which rules are few: When you’re reviewing something, it is crucial for you to have watched the entire thing.

This is why I’m not going to weigh in today with a full-on review of last night’s “Peter Pan” on NBC. You can read plenty of those online and in the papers, written by people who (presumably) watched it all the way from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. without dozing off or restlessly switching channels to see what else was on.  

Plus, I don’t really feel qualified to critique “Peter Pan” on its merits (or lack thereof) as musical theater. I review television shows -- not Broadway musicals.

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From my own standpoint as a television columnist, I will say this about the portions of “Peter Pan” that I did see: I found them easy to dismiss and I went elsewhere. But hey, that’s just me.

I checked in on “Peter Pan” from time to time last night, but the story underlying this musical -- about a boy who doesn’t want to grow up and has adventures with pirates -- has never appealed to me on any level (even when I was a boy myself). And neither, for that matter, does the “Peter Pan” tradition of having a young woman in short hair playing the boy Peter. For some reason, this has never worked for me either, probably because I lack the imagination necessary to accept this woman as a boy. To me, they just look like women. I know: My bad. 

Not that I don’t appreciate the virtuosity of a live television event. In addition to my intermittent check-ins last night, I watched the first hour of “Peter Pan” this morning (I DVR’d it). And as I often do with productions of this kind, I came away impressed with its technical proficiency.

Yes -- all due respect to NBC for expending the time, energy and money to mount what had to be a very complicated production.  From what I saw and heard, the visuals and sound all seemed to work well. And if I can get around my prejudice against short-haired actresses in boy-drag playing Peter, I will say that Allison Williams has a nice singing voice and she applied the appropriate energy to playing the exuberant Peter.

In addition, from what little I saw of him, I tend to agree with those who are complaining today that Christopher Walken may have been ill-cast in the role of Capt. Hook. But I will leave that assessment to others because here again, I didn’t watch the whole thing. Maybe he had some scene or musical number that I unfortunately missed in which he raised the roof (although I’m not reading about any such scene in any of the reviews I’m seeing today). 

The thing is, I cannot remember the last time I ever watched three hours of one thing on TV.  I just don’t seem to have the attention span for that, other than the occasional showing of “Gone With the Wind” on Turner Classic Movies (and even that telecast comes with a built-in intermission midway through).

In the months leading up to last night’s “Peter Pan Live!” telecast, I was puzzled by NBC’s expectation that people would tune in, and stay tuned in, in sufficient numbers for this telecast to make financial sense. Despite the modern technology that no doubt contributed to the wizardry of its production, for me, this live musical just seemed corny and old-fashioned -- like a relic of some distant TV past that couldn’t possibly work today.

On the other hand, the overnight ratings show that the network did far better with “Peter Pan” than it usually does with its regular Thursday night shows.  “Peter Pan” averaged 9.129 million viewers over its three hours, according to Nielsen -- a very strong showing for NBC (although second to CBS’s three-hour average of 9.531 million).

More crucially, NBC won the demo race -- scoring a 2.3 rating/7 share in the 18-49 group from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m., which means you can be certain that more of these annual live musicals will turn up on NBC for years to come. 

I just don’t know if I will ever have the fortitude to sit through any of them.

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