The Philanthropist – It’s up to us

by Aryeh S.

The big season (or is it series?) finale of The Philanthropist left us all with a challenge: what’s our great idea for helping the world? That’s the message I got from that last shot, the camera pulled in tight behind the guy holding up his hand… that’s us. What’s our great idea?

Well, hopefully it will do more good than some of the things that Teddy Rist has been up to this season. It occurred to me during this episode that, while it’s to be commended, Teddy’s assist to individuals does rather little on the broader scale of world problems. So, who’s he really helping?

The truth is, I doubt at times he’s doing much more than helping himself. Teddy lost his son, and a lot of what we’ve watched him do these past two months is designed to remind him, and us, of that fact, maybe make us feel good about the priority he puts on helping children and their parents. But, like he said, with 300,000 Haitian children sold into slavery, what’s saving two going to do for the rest of them?

Which isn’t to say that what he’s done isn’t impressive, but I’m kind of surprised at NBC — I would have thought that a vehicle like this would have been utilized to further a ton of social causes, tying the week’s episode to whatever plight Teddy was confronting on a grander scale. Maybe promoting the cause and discussing it, and what to do to help, on the show’s website. If it’s there, someone forgot to mention it to us while they were busy promoting Microsoft’s Bing.

After the first episode or two, The Philanthropist started to run simultaneous storylines, one with Teddy running around helping people, the other with his partner, Philip, trying to push through some sort of grand-scale deal with that week’s country. But while it’s reasonable to imagine Teddy solving a problem in mere days, it’s a lot less tenable to pretend that Philip could hammer out the next deal in the same window. Food for Haiti? Water for Kashmir? Jobs for Kosovo? These are major issues, that have stymied world leaders for years… but Maidstone-Rist can call it a job well done in an hour?

As much as I dislike life-lessons from TV, at least they should be ones that we can learn something from. Representing that mountains can be moved so quickly not only gives the wrong impression, but it also gives the rest of us plenty of reason to say “They don’t need me. A guy can do this with the snap of his finger.” If the point was to reduce our fears of the insurmountable, The Philanthropist missed.

Even so, the show’s been good fun. I was surprised to have enjoyed it as much as I did, particularly given my disinterest in many of the characters, but I loved watching James Purefoy run around, and Michael K. Williams trying to keep him alive (although his role was far too minor for my tastes). I think a refocus is called for, but I’d love to see The Philanthropist return again at some point….

There are plenty more hot spots in the world that Teddy has yet to be shot at in.