The Pretender

There are pretenders among us, geniuses with the ability to become anyone they want to be... In 1963, a Corporation known as the Centre, isolated a young pretender named Jarod, and exploited his genius for their research. Until one day, their pretender ran away ...

Television shows come and go. Networks either cancel them or renew them, but no matter what, all shows end. The thing is, sometimes shows are cancelled before their time, before they have finished the story they are seeking to tell. One such show, cancelled before it finished its story, was The Pretender (1996-2000). The brainchild of Steven Long Mitchell and Craig W. Van Sickle the show followed Jarod (Michael T. Weiss), a Pretender, and Miss Parker (Andrea Parker), the woman who hunts him for an organization called the Centre.

Trust can kill you, or set you free. Catherine Parker

In truth, the show is vastly more complex than that. A Pretender is a genius, but one who can become anyone, anything, he wants to be. Jarod can read a book on brain surgery at noon and perform it flawlessly at 2 pm. Other Pretenders are shown or mentioned throughout the show’s run, Jarod’s bother Kyle (Jeffrey Donovan), a man named Alex (Peter Outerbridge), and another man Eddie (Yannick Bisson). Jarod also has a young clone, called Gemini (Ryan Merriman), created by the Centre who is, like his father/brother, a Pretender.

I want to know who I am. And I'd rather die trying to find out than live not knowing. Jarod

Little is known about Jarod’s family, other than that his mother’s name is Margaret (Kim Myers), he has a sister named Emily (Marisa Petroro) who is a reporter, he shares a half-brother, Ethan (Tyler Christopher), with Miss Parker, and his father is named and always referred to as Major Charles (George Lazenby). He searches the country, and it is insinuated, the world, for his family. He searches because he was kidnapped as a child, by the Centre. One of the few facts known about Jarod is that he was kidnapped in 1963.

You know the rumor that JFK was kept alive as a vegetable somewhere? Buzzie claims it was right here in SL-18.  Broots

            The Centre, a think tank located in the fictional Blue Cove Delaware, is a supposedly philanthropic organization that is trying to help people.  It is run, and has always been run, by the Parker family.  Mr. Parker (Harve Presnell), the father of Miss Parker, is the chairman of the Centre until he is forced to run and fight for his position, resulting in what appears to be his death.  The Centre isolated Jarod, and other Pretenders like him, from the world, and trained them.  Jarod was “raised” by a psychologist, Dr. Sydney Green (Patrick Bauchau), and trained to perform simulations.  In these simulations Jarod would either be in training to assume an identity or find a problem to a solution the Centre already knew the answer to, or he was seeking to find a solution to a problem.  From the beginning of his stay at the Centre until the end, many of Jarod’s simulations revolve around historical happenings, from the Apollo 13 disaster, to the Kennedy assignation, to the death of Marilyn Monroe.  The simulations that were performed to find solutions, sometimes to problems that did not yet exist, thus requiring Jarod to first create the problem, were sold by the Centre to the highest bidder.  Many times the work that Jarod thought was going to help people was in fact used to hurt innocent people.

You shouldn't underestimate Jarod. And you should never underestimate me. And the next time that you send me into a building that is gonna explode, it had better blow, because if it doesn't it's gonna be your gray matter they will be mopping up with a toothbrush.  Miss Parker

  Mystery surrounds the Parker family, a family where who one is related to can change easily and how a person is related to another can change just as easily.  Miss Parker, and her twin brother, the insidious Mr. Lyle (James Denton, are both considered Red Files, by the Centre.  The Red Files, were children who were special, some like Jarod and Kyle were Pretenders, another inmate of the Centre, Angelo (Paul Dillon), is a savant, after an experiment when he was a child to turn him into a “natural” Pretender, ended up destroying his personality and rewriting his mental synapses to the point where he cannot function as a “normal” person or even as the type of Pretender that Jarod and the others can function as.  Miss Parker is known to hear a “voice” just as her mother and half brother Ethan do.  It is more than probable that Mr. Lyle is a Pretender as well.  Certainly he is more than capable of faking his own death and at times demonstrated a high level of intelligence.  Though Miss Parker is never stated to be a Pretender, many fans have come up with theories that she is either an untrained Pretender or that she is trained but does not know it.  As no female Pretender was ever shown, and certainly Emily, Jarod’s sister is treated in her few appearances as being a normal person, unlike her brothers, it is unknown if a female Pretender can even exist.

We both know that this notion of human equality perpetuates mediocrity. But we're not mediocre, are we, Miss Parker? We're independent - and independence - that's a privilege of the strong. Tell me, Miss Parker, how strong are you?  Mr. Lyle

            For a show with a deep, complex, and twisting mythology, The Pretender was about families and connections at all times.  Jarod, after his escape from the Centre in 1996 not only searched for his missing past and missing family, he tried to make amends for the terrible things his mind created.  To atone, he seeks emotional justice of people who have been hurt or wronged in some way.  A dark hero, Jarod inflicts the same fate on the villain of the week as they did on their victim.  What keeps Jarod from being evil is that he always acquires a full confession, usually taped, for the police, and he always leaves his “victim” alive, though they think he is going to kill them.

Because I still remember the little girl who gave me my first kiss.  Jarod

            Jarod and his hunters are connected as well.  He and Miss Parker were childhood friends, before she was sent away to school.  Though they had not seen each other in years and not been friends since her departure, Jarod continually reaches out to Miss Parker, trying to get her to see the world from his perspective.  She, however, was pulled from the corporate side of the Centre back to something closer to her roots as a Centre Cleaner, though considerably higher on the staff food chain now, in order to find and capture Jarod.  It is main clear to her very often that she will only be free to leave the Centre after Jarod has been recaptured.  The death of her mother in a Centre elevator, when she was only a child, haunts her and drives her on a quest to know what happened to her mother, who killed her and why.  Jarod helps in this, at times, though more often he shoves information he has uncovered about the dirty secrets of the Centre and the Parker family in Miss Parker’s face, he appears to blame her or want her to take responsibility for actions that took place when she was a child and was certainly not in control over her own fate. 

You run - I chase. That choice was made for us a long time ago. Miss Parker

In fact, Miss Parker has likely never been fully in control over her own fate at the Centre, imprisoned by different, but no less constricting cell walls as Jarod was.  Throughout everything the two maintain an degree of friendship, both are willing to reach out to the other, if only as a last case scenario, and both are capable of working together, though it happened only rarely on the show and was usually preceded by much snark and baiting by both.  At the end of the last Pretender television movie, Jarod asked Miss Parker to come with him, both leaving the Centre and indicating his interest in her romantically.  He called it a “turning point” and though she turned him down, it is unclear if it was her intention to keep both of them alive as they were in Centre custody at the time, or if she was truly not interested. 

Why is it that the one person that I've been trained to distrust, to hate, to capture is always with me during the most difficult moments of my life? Miss Parker

            Their final conversation, which took place over the phone at the end of the movie, did not indicate her interest either way, though based on her prior actions, it would be unlike Miss Parker to abandon her team, Sydney and Broots (Jon Gries), to simply flee the Centre.  She has a vaguely maternal relationship with Broots’ daughter Debbie (Kelsey Mulrooney), and Sydney is as much her touchstone to the past as he is Jarod’s.  She often went to lengths to protect Broots and his daughter, though this was after she had formed some degree of bond with them.  With her knowledge, though at times vague, of the depravity of the Centre and it’s projects, Miss Parker would be unlikely to abandon the people she cares about who are within the reach of the Centre.  Whether or not Jarod, for all his insight as a Pretender, can actually see that is unknown.

This isn't the different ending you were looking for. But it's just the way the damn story goes, Jarod.  Miss Parker

            If all of this is confusing, in a way it is supposed to be.  Life is confusing and The Pretender was always good about presenting real people, often who did not make the best choices.  While Jarod is a hero, he is a dark hero, willing to go to great lengths to punish those he finds are guilty of hurting others, especially if their crime has yet to be prosecuted or they were simply not punished by the law for some reason.  Miss Parker, Sydney, and Broots, though they hunt Jarod and seek to deprive him of his freedom and Sydney helped to keep Jarod in captivity for 30 years, are never shown to be fully villains.  Miss Parker and Sydney care for Jarod, Sydney certainly has helped him on many occasions providing information and helped him escape from the Sweeper teams and especially Miss Parker.  Broots has continually exhibited a hero worship of Jarod, seeing him as someone to look up to and aspire to be like, even as he also fears Jarod and any retribution for hunting the Pretender.  The darkest villains, the true villains, Mr. Parker and Mr. Raines (Richard Marcus), two men who vie for control of the Centre and who hold all the secrets that Jarod and Miss Parker seek. 

I know that there is always hope. Always!  Jarod

            In the end, the secrets have yet to be revealed, though fans of the series have been promised an ending to the saga.  A continuation on the web and at least one more movie to tie up all the lingering plotlines have been promised by Steven Long Mitchell and Craig W. Van Sickle, though patience has also been asked, and fan groups such as FrustratedTPFans continue to campaign to get the show back on the air in syndication at least, and ultimately desiring either a 5^th season or another movie.  Hulu.com has all four seasons of The Pretender available, and the current entirety of the series including the two made for tv movies, are available on DVD.  With a dark and twisty mythology and characters who walk the line between light and dark, The Pretender is a show that would fit perfectly with a current show like Lost, a show that makes its viewers think and seek the answers to the same questions the characters have, a show that is as much a mind puzzle for its viewers as it is entertainment.  I can only beg people to watch The Pretender and if they watched casually or occasionally when it was on, to watch it again, and this time delve into its mysteries and its characters.

The Centre wants us to believe that finding the truth is a mistake, that looking for answers about who we really are is futile and finding any kind of... connection outside their control is wrong. I know you don't want to hear this but you can feel it. You've been a Centre prisoner all these years just like me. And with every discovery you find you're every bit the outcast. Just like me.  Jarod

            With Jarod as a dark god of retribution actively seeking the light, righting what wrongs he can, and Miss Parker, an angel who walks in the dark places not always helping, but not always hurting either and sometimes offering help to those in need, anchoring the show and seeking answers to the same questions from two different angles and two different places, the conversation the show has about good and evil, light and dark, redemption and betrayal, are all fascinating.  For all its darkness, its also a show that can be watched by the whole family, though younger children might not want to watch.  So parents, be advised, bad things do happen on the show and characters do and say things that are not always appropriate or good.  Miss Parker though is a brilliant characterization of a strong female lead who has vulnerabilities but is still tougher than anyone else on the show.  Jarod is a brilliant characterization of a man trying to find out who he is and what it all means.  Life is the ultimate point of the show, life and family, who you are and the choices you make define you, and within the world of The Pretender, sometimes when the foundations you have based your life on crumble, who you are becomes defined by what you do and how you deal.

The truth can kill you, or set you free.  Catherine Parker

            Go to Hulu and watch, or go and buy the DVDs, either way, The Pretender is one of the best shows not on anymore.  A true case of a network cancelling too soon.

            All pictures and quotes are not mine, they belong to NBC and the people who have actually created The Pretender.  So please, don’t sue me.