A Prince Among Men

[thomasaevans]

Dont ask me how I got here… but enlighten me – What the hell Is this? And where was I?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJ9NExjDoVo

Topic

[Connell]

Wikipedia sums it up perfectly, really;

“A Prince Among Men was a somewhat unsuccessful British sitcom that ran on BBC1 from 1997 to 1998 lasting 12 episodes”

[si]

“He’s a winner, he’s a star, he’s a Prince, Prince among men…”

Gary (or was it Garry?) Prince, ex-footballer, and generally obnoxious git. Not Chris Barrie’s *finest* hour, but nowhere near as bad as Craig’s Captain Butler, which was around the same time.

Actually, it wasn’t that bad, though I do remember asking Chris at a Dimension Jump Q&A, “Gary Prince: Why?”

[Carlito]

I actually liked Captain Butler. No classic by any means, but cheap and cheerful.

A Prince Among Men was quite flat, but I do recall the final two or three episodes of series 2 (when it had been shunted to Sunday afternoons) being actually quite good.

[Pete Part Three]

Hey – it’s the guy from The World Is Not Enough!

Um, and yeah, A Prince Among Men. The scripts weren’t great but I don’t think Chris’s performance helped to be honest. He’s playing a caricature here, not a character.

[si]

He’s doing his comedy Craig impression.

[pfm]

I’ve never seen a single episode but…it looks ruddy shite (I’d love to be proved wrong). The theme and titles are enough to put anyone off!

Maybe we should be thankful it didn’t do so well. Maybe Chris would never have come back…..

[UncreativeUserName]

That show seems endearing in it’s parody-like awfulness.

[HelloMabel]

There was much discussion about this show back in the newsgroup/mailing list days, so I feel as if I’ve seen it even though I can’t possibly have.

Interestingly, the premise is slightly reminiscent of the hugely popular Married With Children – both are about a former athlete, his disfunctional relationship with his family and what he’s doing now that his sports career is over. The rather large difference being, Al Bundy gave up a promising but not guaranteed football career (he hadn’t been signed yet) to do the honorable thing and take a job he hates in order to support his family, whereas Gary Prince had two lucrative careers but apparently not a single redeeming quality. I guess you could argue that series 1 Rimmer doesn’t either, but even at his most insufferable Rimmer’s still the character we love to hate (I think I’m quoting Tanya there). In Brittas Empire, Brittas’s cluelessness was also endearing somehow, even though that character gets really tiresome – but all indications are Gary Prince was just irritating. I’m sure he would have grown more nuanced eventually, but man, it’s a wonder the show lasted as long as 12 episodes.

“The Optician” was beautiful, though.

[Pete Part Three]

>…not a single redeeming quality. I guess you could argue that series 1 Rimmer doesn’t either

Only if you hadn’t watched Me2

[Ian Symes]

Me2 certainly cements the redeeming features Rimmer’s character, but each and every episode up to that point has an element to his motivation that the audience can sympathise with – The End shows him struggling to cope with his death, Future Echoes has him threatened with being turned off, he acts like a twat in BoP but he’s doing so to protect his hologrammatic status, Waiting For God sees him striving for a new body and in CaP he’s doing all he can to help Lister get better.

Whereas Gary Prince was indeed a massive twat.

[HelloMabel]

True enough. (: and all this time I thought I was weird for sympathizing with Rimmer!

[jameslious]

He is doing comedy there !!

[Author]

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