Jocks in Rehab,
A Queen Unearthed:
Reviews of "Playmakers"
and "Nefertiti Resurrected"

By Esther Iverem
SeeingBlack.com Editor and Film Critic

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The premiere of the new ESPN TV series "Playmakers" could also be titled "Jocks in Rehab." The assorted addictions, co-dependencies, hang-ups and "issues" of this motley crew of fictional professional football players are enough to fill the Physician's Handbook. Only time will tell if these foibles are enough to save "Playmakers" from being just another soap opera with jock straps and shoulder pads added for effect.

The premiere (and perhaps the overall series) focuses on a linebacker Eric Olczyk (played by Jason Matthew Smith) for a team called the Cougars, When we first meet him, the bald and burly player is visiting a player from an opposing team who he tackled very hard and who, it seems, is now completely paralyzed. So from the start, Olczyk is set up as a man of conscience in a sport where it is not a top priority to care for your opponent.

Olczyk is White and, in an ebony-ivory combination that needs more chemistry, he is paired with Black running back Leon Taylor, played by Russell Hornsby. While Olczyk is the conscience, Taylor is the embattled old lion struggling to regain his starting position on a team where youth and speed, rather than experience, are prized. While Olczyk is unassuming and balanced, Taylor is both cocky and insecure. With his entire livelihood and identity wrapped into his sport, Taylor seems to be experiencing an early mid-life crisis at work and at home. He wife wonders about strange women calling the house. He fantasizes about "doing" the local TV reporter. He has just rehabilitated himself from a possibly career-ending injury but insists on challenging a young lion to a sprint down the field.

Omar Gooding, the most recent arrival from the Gooding family of artists, makes the biggest splash here as Demetrius Harris, the bad boy on the field, the brash new running back who doesn't care about the rules. It is through his character, that "Playmakers" taps into the world of fast women, fast cars and drugs that seem to surround and destroy many professional athletes. It is also through Harris that the writes make most successful use of interior dialogue, peppered throughout the episode, to fill us in on Harris's troubled past as the child of drug addicts.

The writing and direction are above average for television but still, in spots, has that made-for-TV feel avoided by gritty TV dramas such as "The Wire" and "Street Time." One advantage those shows have over "Playmakers" is that they use the energy of their supposed locations—Baltimore and New York—to add texture, realism and atmosphere to their stories. It is really not clear where "Playmakers" is "based" and professional sports are very much about being in or from some particular town, city or state.

Also, perhaps "Playmakers" was tamed down so that it could draw a wider audience. There is little profanity and, given the opportunity provided by the subject matter; little sexuality. One scene shows two women asleep in the bed with Harris. Another scene has the paralyzed player using a slang term to complain that he has no feeling in his groin area. Maybe "Playmakers," which is ESPN's first fictional drama series, will not find itself also paralyzed by melodrama and develop its own sense of action that is as exciting as the sports the channel covers.

'Nefertiti Resurrected'

Once again, the Discovery Channel makes history and science into very gripping television. "Nefertiti Resurrected" is both a colorful account of the life of the famous Egyptian queen and a gripping whodunit about her death and burial. The two-hour special, which will premiere around the world, does not feel dusty or created by or for eggheads. Through vivid reenactments, it also rightly portrays Nefertiti—one of the most powerful women in ancient Egypt—as a woman of color in an Egypt where people actually look like they come from some part of Africa.

The heart of the production is the effort this year by Egyptologist Dr. Joanne Fletcher, with funding from the Discovery Channel, to identify the mummy and burial site of Nefertiti, which has been a mystery to experts in the field. Although a healthy amount of scientific skepticism is raised in the program, and more questions have been raised about it since its premiere, it is clear from the show that Fletcher and her team believe that they have indeed located the long lost queen's tomb.

The story of how Fletcher, a bespectacled, curly-haired woman, got on the trail of Nefertiti almost 13 years ago, unfolds like a detective story. In 1990, as Fletcher did Ph.D. research on Egyptian hair and wigs, she discovered that, at the end of the 18th century, a portion of a wig had been found beside three anonymous mummies in the Valley of the Kings, where pharaohs and royalty were buried.

Because the wig fragment was stored at the Cairo Museum, Fletcher was allowed to study it and she determined that it was the type of Nubian-styled wig—with hanging braids—favored by royal women during the Armara period in which Nefertiti lived and ruled. Fletcher's colleagues also informed her that one of the anonymous mummies had actually been identified as Queen Tiy, Nefertiti's mother-in-law and a member of the late 18th dynasty royal family.

The first expedition to the tomb, which is located in the tomb of Amenhotep II, just beyond the tomb of Nefertiti's step-son Tutankhamun, occurred in June of last year. This initial investigation only added evidence to support Fletcher's theory. An archeological chemist judged the mummies to be from Nefertiti's period. Of the three mummies, one was believed to be Queen Tiy, in the middle was a young man and the third, on the right, was a young woman.

The young woman, even though mummified more than 1000 years B.C., had a long graceful neck similar to that depicted on famous busts of Nefertiti. There were two ear piercings, unusual for that period but matching the depictions of the queen. The head was shaved, which would have been necessary for wearing her famous high crown and there was an impression on the skull of tight-fitting brow band, which would have also been worn.

Another trip to the tomb in February of this year, which unfolds in real time for viewers of the show, yields even more fascinating clues. Though these field investigations are intriguing, I can't help but be reminded of the double standard of respect for unearthing and displaying Egyptian remains. These bones, after all, belong to a human being and I don't see the same televised handling of bones from old Europe.

Though this ghoulish display is somewhat questionable, the show does detail the unusual mutilation of the corpse, which these researchers say is similar to the damage done to many depictions of Nefertiti throughout Egypt. These researchers believe that the damage was done to the tombs of Nefertiti and that of her husband, Akhenaten (born Amenhotep IV), by priests outraged by the couple's institution of an early form of monotheism. Akhenaten and Nefertiti recognized the sun god Aten and challenged Egypt's tradition of polytheism and worship of Amun. It is also believed that when Akhenaten died, Nefertiti continued to rule as a pharaoh. When both Akhenaten and Nefertiti were dead, the priests restored traditional beliefs. "Nefertiti Resurrected" manages to present this history and drama while unearthing the mystery of long-buried bones.

These reviews by Esther Iverem first appeared on www.bet.com.

— September 12, 2003

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