Posted: 09/23/2007

Chancer – Series 1

(1990)

by D. B. Bates

Available from Acorn Media.

For the first three episodes of Chancer, I listened to a great deal of high-finance jargon and dry British wit, witnessed obscene actions of manipulation and deceit, but if asked to explain the story I would have stammered and stumbled and given up. I had no clue what was happening or why. I had to plunge forward for the sake of the review, however, but if it had just been me, catching a marathon of reruns at 2 a.m. on BBC America, I would have shut it off in frustration.

I couldn’t tell you if the show made sense to British audiences in 1991; maybe the intrigue and confusion of the high-finance world appealed to that post-Wall Street era more than it does to a person living in the collapsed rubble of the e-Conomy bubble. But as the characters formulated and as the dust and debris of the machinations of the first three episodes settled, Chancer turns into an enjoyable epic of corporate corruption, city “ethics” versus country morality, and globalization.

The story begins with a fire at Douglas Motors, a small company that manufactures luxury Leopards (I assume this is a play on Jaguar) selling for ridiculous amounts of money. Each Leopard is hand-crafted, but decades of automation and decreasing car prices are leading Douglas to collapse. To the bank, the fire is the last straw. Robert Douglas (Benjamin Whitrow, giving perhaps the strongest performance on the show) refuses to let his company die like this. His son-in-law, Gavin (Matthew Marsh), offers to talk to his business consultant friend in London.

Enter Stephen Crane (Clive Owen), a manipulative risk-taker who somehow manages to come out on top, every time. Even after some light insider trading during the first few episodes, Crane joins up with Douglas Motors and offers himself a huge salary to consult without having anything like a business model, a strategy to cut the competition, or investors. Who needs them?

The first half of the series revolves around Stephen Crane’s brash, citified business anti-ethics getting in the way of Robert Douglas’s close-knit, family-operated motor company. When Douglas finally accepts that Crane has the best of intentions, the series shifts more to focus on how Crane will manage to keep the company afloat by doing fairly illegal things while trying to avoid getting caught. It’s especially difficult when business rival Piers Garfield-Ward (Simon Shepherd) and former boss Jimmy Blake (Leslie Phillips) are out for blood.

The story builds to massive payoffs in the last three episodes. Each is constructed as a nearly standalone thriller as Stephen Crane’s past misdeeds catch up to him, and he has to deftly maneuver to stay ahead of businessmen who share his craft and cunning but have the added emotional investment of crushing Crane, and by extension Douglas Motors. The angst boils over until the series froths to its depressing, existential conclusion.

Once the show lays down its business ground rules and gives the impression of what it will be about, Chancer is a wildly entertaining, unpredictable series. However, it has the occasional misstep in the form of soap-opera subplots that go nowhere. Perhaps this is what audiences went for at the time (maybe it’s what audiences still go for now, if the popularity of Grey’s Anatomy is any indication), but it mars an otherwise complex, interesting show. We have the mysterious story of the prodigal son, Jamie Douglas (Sean Pertwee, giving an alternately bizarre and irritating performance), returning to the family for the first time since his mother’s death four years earlier. Other than giving Benjamin Whitrow some great material to work with, it doesn’t add up to much, and Jamie’s pretty much forgotten by the writers a few episodes after he leaves.

There is a similar preoccupation with romantic entanglements. Gavin cheats on his wife with a store clerk in town (among others); Stephen Crane dumps kindred spirit Joanna Franklyn (Susannah Harker) for Robert Douglas’s tedious, egotistical daughter Victoria (Lynsey Baxter). Joanna gets involved with Crane’s rival, Piers. At best, these tacked-on stories reveal new insights into the characters. I still wish they’d done more to justify their existence, considering the way many of them peter out without satisfactory conclusions. Victoria simply waltzes off to a new job in America and Crane forgets her almost immediately. Gavin’s story leads to a lot of melodrama and goofiness.

Joanna’s relationships with both Piers and Crane are probably the most interesting, nuanced, and necessary romantic stories. Her father is a tycoon investing in Douglas Motors whose role grows more and more prominent as the show progresses. Joanna is also a co-conspirator in Crane’s insider trading early in the series. She shares a chemistry with Stephen Crane unmatched by Victoria, who wants to while away the hours arguing with Crane while a “look how cute I think I am” smile creases her face. I’d rather have the histrionics of selfish Gavin shouting at his wife Penny (Caroline Langrishe) than that.

Still, these subplots can’t keep Chancer down. They pad the proceedings a bit, but in the end it’s a series well worth watching, especially for Clive Owen fans. Although Benjamin Whitrow’s Robert Douglas has King Lear-esque shades of depth and vulnerability, the show belongs to Owen. He starts the series as an unabashedly unpleasant grifter, but by the end, audiences will find themselves cheering for him and his misanthropic actions. That’s no small feat.

D. B. Bates is a suicidal former Legionnaire with gambling debts who does shirtless midnight tai chi to impress and confuse “neighbours.”

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