| Deadly Games | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Created by |
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| Starring |
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| Composer | Dennis McCarthy |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 13 |
| Production | |
| Producer | William S. Kerr |
| Production location | California |
| Cinematography | Billy Dickson |
| Editors |
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| Running time | 60 minutes |
| Production companies |
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| Original release | |
| Network | UPN |
| Release | September 5, 1995 – January 16, 1996 |
Deadly Games is an American action science fiction television series that aired on UPN[1][2] from September 5, 1995, to January 16, 1996. The basic plot of the show is about video game characters that come to life, re-enacting their deadly plans for wanton destruction and world domination in the real world. The series was produced by Viacom Productions.
The first episode introduces the protagonist, Dr. Gus Lloyd, an Antimatter physicist, engineer and video game designer who has created a live-action game in his spare time to exert his indignant feelings about his recent divorce and all the people in his life who have all made his life hell on Earth (his father, his ex-wife's mother, his ex-wife's divorce lawyer, his ex-girlfriend, his former employer, a high school football-Quarterback bully, his old camp counselor, the garbage man, a corrupt car mechanic); the villains of the game are modeled after all these people. The master villain is Jackal, who is a combination of the devil and Gus' father. The Jackal wears a vanilla-white ice cream suit and drives a Chrysler convertible to match.
The hero is "The Cold-Steel Kid," a warrior trying to save the dying world, dons commando wear and is naturally modeled after Gus himself, and the sometimes helplessly captive, sometimes active heroine ingenue The Kid is always trying to rescue — "The Girl" — is based on Lauren Ashborne, Gus' ex-wife (wearing the kind of dress of a "Damsel in distress").
In an accident involving an experimental laboratory project, Jackal and the villains step out of the game and into the real world to cause the apocalyptic carnage and domination they were programmed to for the game.
Each week, one of the villains tries to carry out an evil plot according to the rules of the video game, and Gus, Lauren, and Gus' friend Peter Rucker try to defeat and destroy the said villain. Almost indestructible and superhumanly strong, each villain is programmed with specific weapons and weaknesses based on that villain's "theme"; e.g., "Killshot's" Achilles' Heel was being sprayed with water, The Boss would "fire" people with exploding pink slips and his weak link was red ink, The Evil Shirley's was dirt and she would be wiped out by having a house fall on her, The Camp Counselor would get burned by being hit with fast-lighting charcoal and would be killed off by an arrow shot right through the bulls-eye on his T-shirt, The Practical Joker could only be defeated by his master prank being foiled, The Divorce Attorney was a being that sucked up electricity and distributed it in the form of lightning bolts (her weakness was being hit with a foam-rubber arrow), The Motivational Speaker literally ate Bologna sausage and killed people with a gun that ejected audiocassettes and would reduce them to nothing but his audiotape, and he could only be destroyed by eating his own words. He could be slowed down with shots from a paintball gun.
Another weekly bad guy was a corrupted car mechanic who tasered people with a calculator and would be destroyed by seeing his own reflection. And of course, The Garbage Man was damaged by cleaning products and The Orthodontist (as well as his assistant) had an aversion to sugar. The Ex-Girlfriend was a misandrist with a hatred for all men, especially The Cold-Steel Kid. Her weakness was gold. All the henchmen were instantly obliterated—going up in smoke and blue light when the Jackal's evil weekly master scheme was foiled. The Jackal's own vice was being hit with a baseball—the very one autographed by Bobby Mercer that Gus got from the only baseball game he ever went to with his own father. Jackal is present in every episode, commanding the other villains and vexing the heroes, usually with a glass of champagne in hand.
The following characters appear in every episode:
Each of the following characters appears in only one episode:
| No. | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Killshot" | Leonard Nimoy | Paul Bernbaum & Anthony Spinner | September 5, 1995 | |
| Mild-mannered scientist Gus Lloyd has a hobby that allows him to blow off steam: He designs video games and bases his bad guys on people who bug him. But a freak accident occurs, unleashing the sublimely sinister Sebastian Jackal and his minions on the real world. First up is a Quarterback who plans to help The Jackal to kill Gus and Lauren and blow up everyone at the Super Bowl. | |||||
| 2 | "One Mean Mother" | Jim Charleston | Paul Bernbaum | September 12, 1995 | |
| Jackal enlists the aid of "Evil Shirley," an Ice Queen who's patterned after Lauren's mother, to help plant a bomb on a cruise ship that Lauren's real mom and her fiancé are on. | |||||
| 3 | "The Boss" | Christopher Hibler | Lee Goldberg & William Rabkin | September 19, 1995 | |
| Jackal and the evil video version of Gus's first boss plan to blow up a gasoline truck — with Lauren's ex-fiancé behind the wheel. | |||||
| 4 | "The End of the Jackal" | Burt Brinckerhoff | Paul Bernbaum | September 26, 1995 | |
| Jackal's real-life model is revealed as the supervillain sets his sights on the destruction of "the family," with a park and a maternity ward primary targets. Meanwhile, Peter believes he's found a way to put the supervillain back into the game for good, but his actions may have cost Gus and Lauren their lives in the real world as well. | |||||
| 5 | "The Camp Counselor: Part 1" | Jim Charleston | Jack Bernstein | October 3, 1995 | |
| Just when Gus though it was safe, Jackal exercises his power from within the computer, sending the "Perfect Woman" (Kathy Ireland) into the real world, followed by Gus's sadistic childhood camp counselor, who plans to blow up a Marine base with a rocket. | |||||
| 6 | "The Camp Counselor: Part 2" | Jim Charleston | Jack Bernstein | October 10, 1995 | |
| Gus rescues Lauren from her imprisonment in the computer, but in the process releases Jackal and the other bad guys — including the evil camp counselor Chuck, who embarks on a mission to blow up a Marine base commander. | |||||
| 7 | "The Practical Joker" | Adam Nimoy | Paul Bernbaum | October 17, 1995 | |
| Practical joker Danny Schlecht enters a new character into the game who (a) plants a bomb in Gus's VCR, (b) drugs Lauren and Peter and puts them in a compromising position, and (c) meets Jackal — who's not sure how to treat this new villain. | |||||
| 8 | "The Car Mechanic" | Christopher Hibler | Lee Goldberg & William Rabkin | November 7, 1995 | |
| In the midst of a wicked heat wave, Jackal throws a monkey wrench into Gus's life in the form of car mechanic Ross Logan, who aims to derail a train; meanwhile, Detective Dorn (Sam McMurray) gets closer to the truth about the game. | |||||
| 9 | "The Divorce Lawyer" | Christian I. Nyby II | Kate Boutilier | November 14, 1995 | |
| Gus is shocked to learn the latest villain is Lauren's divorce lawyer, currently charged with 10,000 volts and aiming to electrify the Supreme Court Justices' chairs, unless Gus and Lauren can ground the amped-up attorney first. Lauren is shocked to find out for this level, she is the one calling the shots. | |||||
| 10 | "The Motivational Speaker" | Christian I. Nyby II | Jed Seidel | November 21, 1995 | |
| A slick, motor-mouthed motivational speaker spells trouble when he drives a wedge between Gus and Peter, then embarks on a nefarious plan to poison the New Year's Eve ball at Times Square. | |||||
| 11 | "The Trash Man" | Neema Barnette | Craig Tepper | January 2, 1996 | |
| When Gus is awakened by the sound of garbage can lids banging together, he realizes that another level of the game has begun. Meet The Trash Man, a filthy adversary armed with radioactive sludge who is out to destroy the sites of all of Gus and Lauren's most magical moments. Armed in turn with the cleaning products they know will slow the villain down, Gus, Lauren and Peter go on a chase that takes them through a museum to a Las Vegas motel and, ultimately, the Hollywood Bowl. | |||||
| 12 | "Dr. Kramer" | Bruce Bilson | Paul Bernbaum | January 9, 1996 | |
| Dr. Kramer, The Orthodontist, plans to pump laughing gas into the comedy club. At the same time, Lauren's comedian friend is attempting to make a comeback. Dr. Kramer is defeated early on and Sharon, The oral Hygienist, continues to carry on the task. | |||||
| 13 | "The Ex-Girlfriend" | Max Tash | Paul Bernbaum | January 16, 1996 | |
| Peter plans on moving into Lauren's mother's guest-house. The university terminates Gus and Peter's grant. Belinda, the leather-clad dominatrix Ex-Girlfriend, wants revenge herself on The Cold-Steel Kid and all men. She can only be defeated by a golden bullet. | |||||
On June 11, 2018, Visual Entertainment released the complete series on DVD in Region 1.[3]
