What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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May 14 - 20, 2023 WHATS UP! T11 prank or just a reward for their work, depending on your per- spective. Prior to getting the roles on the new Netflix sitcom, the two starred in "Chad & JT Go Deep," a prank series in the grand tradi- tion of "Punk'd" and even "Can- did Camera." On that show, they played two frat boy-like friends who travelled the country es- pousing "activist" causes that were, in fact, just excuses to say embarrassing things and force serious people (city council members, news anchors and so on) to listen. That show was released on Netflix in 2022 and seems to have led directly to the "Unsta- ble" roles. I say that not only because the characters have suspiciously similar names (Chaz and TJ), but also because, as you say, they have a frat bro air that seems out of place on the board of "Unsta- ble's" multimillion-dollar bio- tech firm. It seems, instead, that they're there because the characters work on their own. Their rap- port with each other is fluid, and their commitment to being clue- less guys who don't know they're out of their depth is fun- ny regardless of the situation they're drowning in. It adds a second layer of com- edy to "Unstable" — a subplot to the core story of an eccentric bil- lionaire (played by Rob Lowe, "St. Elmo's Fire," 1985) repairing his broken relationship with his son (played by Lowe's real-life son, John Owen Lowe, who also previously worked with his dad on "The Grinder"). Q: I want to read the book that "Sanditon" is based on, but I can't find it. Was it pub- lished under another name? A: It was actually published under multiple names, which might be the problem. The great romance author Jane Austen died before finish- ing "Sanditon." But even half of a Jane Austen novel was too much for publishers to resist, so a number of ghostwriters have been drafted over the years to complete it for publication. But they've been published under multiple titles. The PBS series I assume you're referring to was, indeed, just called "Sanditon." And most of the novels stick close to this — "Sanditon: Jane Austen's Un- finished Masterpiece Complet- ed" and "Sanditon: Jane Austen's Last Novel" are both available from Barnes and Noble, for ex- ample. But it was also published as "A Return to Sanditon," "Jane Aus- ten's Charlotte" and even "Jane Austen Out of the Blue" (though this was a sort of meta adapta- tion in which Austen appears as a character). Considering how many screen adaptations have been made of Austen's completed works (par- ticularly "Pride & Prejudice" and "Emma"), it's a little surpris- ing it took TV this long to get to "Sanditon." But it appears to have paid off. What was originally billed as a limited series has been extended to three seasons. So we can probably expect more adapta- tions in the future, as Austen's appeal seems to be pretty well timeless at this point. Have a question? Email us at questions@tvtabloid.com. Please include your name and town. Personal replies will not be provided. Advance Pest Control 2 x 2 TAKE 5 Solution on page T23 Use the clues above and beside the grid to fill in the squares BY ADAM THOMLISON TV Media Q: I vaguely remember a "Streets of San Francisco" episode or movie with an old- er Karl Malden and without Michael Douglas in it. What was that about? Was it sup- posed to be a spinoff? A: It seems like NBC wasn't quite sure what it was supposed to be. But with all due respect to the people involved, it didn't amount to much. "Back to the Streets of San Francisco" was a TV movie that aired in 1992, 15 years after the fi- nale of the original hit series, "The Streets of San Francisco." The original series, which helped shape the now-estab- lished buddy-cop genre, starred longtime screen great Karl Mal- den ("A Streetcar Named De- sire," 1951) and future screen great Michael Douglas ("Fatal Attraction," 1987). By the time "Back to" came around, Douglas was one of the most bankable stars in Holly- wood and reportedly turned down the request to reprise his role. So the producers went ahead with it, getting around Douglas' absence by "turning him into a corpse," in the words of an Entertainment Weekly re- view at the time. The plot be- came Malden's character hunt- ing the person who killed his partner. The EW review suggested that the movie was intended as a springboard to either a sequel or a regular series, but neither came to pass. And that suited the reviewer just fine. "This version of Mal- den's Mike Stone seems woeful- ly out of touch — a hero who should have retired a while ago." Q: I just watched "Unsta- ble" with Rob Lowe, and the two board members trying to oust him seemed odd — they didn't seem to fit the role of corporate board members. Are the actors famous for something else? A: You have good instincts for noticing that. Better than, say, a number of local city councils and a few news programs. J.T. Parr and Tom Allen have been playing an elaborate series of pranks on the American pub- lic for a couple of years now, and getting those roles on "Unsta- ble" is either an extension of the Michael Douglas HOLLYWOOD Q&A www.advancepestcontrolnwa.com Family Owned, Competitively Priced, Quality Service Since 1981 Rogers 479-636-5590 Springdale 479-756-1788 Eureka Springs 479-253-8967 PEST CONTROL TERMITE FERTILIZATION WEED CONTROL PRE-EMERGENTS MAY 14-20, 2023 WHAT'S UP! 21