Fresh Hell Review
Celebrities have a long history of doing stupid things. From the legal problems of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, to answering machine rants by Alec Baldwin and Mel Gibson, to Tom Cruise bouncing up-and-down on a couch on Oprah, to Charlie Sheen declaring he has “tiger’s blood,” both the tabloids and mainstream media are filled with stories of high-profile meltdowns. Some of these celebrities have been able to rebuild their careers afterwards, and some never will.
Then there’s Brent Spiner, the actor who portrayed the android Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Both the man and the character are amongst the most popular from the Star Trek universe, and Spiner continues to attend conventions in order to interact with the fandom. By all indications, he is a class act with great range as a thespian and an inherent sense of humor. All three of those characteristics shine through in the comedy webseries Fresh Hell, in which Spiner mockingly portrays himself as a fallen celebrity living a lonely and isolated life in a small apartment after his own high-profile meltdown, simply referred to as “the incident.”
“Where you lost everything,” a talk-show host comments about the event. “Your family, your home. Your wealth, your career. Your adoring fans.”
Fresh Hell never reveals what it is that Brent Spiner did to make him a toxic outcast, but the first episode of the webseries portrays “the incident” as an extreme example of celebrity misbehavior. “I can imagine a scenario where OJ (Simpson) redeems himself,” a guest on the same talk show later remarks. “I mean, it’s not like he’s Brent Spiner.” The host simply replies, “We had a guest on yesterday whose face was literally ripped off by a pit bull. You know what she said to me? ‘At least I’m not Brent Spiner.’”
While the specifics of “the incident” are left for the imagination of the viewer, Spiner’s quest for rehabilitation falls on the shoulders of next door neighbor and wannabe porn star Dakota (Kat Steel). Through the course of Fresh Hell, she convinces the once-famous persona to be her partner at an acting showcase—with a “lost episode of Friends” as their script—as well as introduces him to her boyfriend-slash-agent and the psychic-slash-personal manager who lives upstairs in their apartment building. The encounters only add to the level of hell that Brent Spiner finds himself in as the trio of characters are both sitcom-style quirky and funny in their own right.
Agent Tommy (Brian Palermo), for instance, tells Spiner that he can arrange meetings between the former Data and writer/directors J.J. Abrams and Joss Whedon but needs to see his penis first. “I’m putting something out there—my time, my energy, the great name of this firm—and I think you should put something out there, too,” Tommy explains before discussing how he helped British actress Judi Dench with her own career. “She sat in that chair right there, slowly crossed and uncrossed her legs and BOOM! that very day I had her in a film with Vin Diesel.”
Psychic Valerie (Karen Austin), meanwhile, later pleads with Spiner to hire her. “I’m the perfect manager for you,” she says. “I’m borderline delusional. Have been for years. I follow my instincts no matter how much hard evidence I come up against. And I will put those skills to work for you. I will believe in you delusionally and as your manager, I will infect other people with that delusion.”
Brent Spiner co-created Fresh Hell with Christopher Ellis and Harry Hannigan. While Spiner is obviously the star of the webseries, Ellis directs the episodes with a high-quality flair while Hannigan delivers scripts filled with crisp dialogue and funny one-liners. When Tommy shows his own irregularly-shaped penis, for example, Spiner remarks, “That thing looks like Owen Wilson’s nose.”
The acting in Fresh Hell is also top-notch, from Kat Steel’s infectious portrayal of the bubbly air-head Dakota, to Brain Palermo’s serious demeanor and dead-pan delivery as Tommy, to Karen Austin’s ability of bringing out the quirky nature of Valerie. Still, the webseries belongs to Brent Spiner and he delivers a comic performance that does not disappoint—everything from his facial expressions to his body language to his recital of the dialogue is spot-on as he maneuvers his way through the personal hell that he suddenly found himself trapped within.
Fresh Hell is fiction of course, as there was no actual “incident” in Brent Spiner’s life. Give the man credit, however, for allowing himself to be mocked in such an out-of-character fashion. And thank him as well, along with Christopher Ellis and Harry Hannigan, for creating a comic webseries that is funnier than a majority of the sitcoms that have found their way onto network television in recent years.
Because in the end, Fresh Hell is a heavenly form of “fresh entertainment.”
Anthony Letizia (June 6, 2011)
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