{"id":155363,"date":"2021-09-13T16:28:30","date_gmt":"2021-09-13T22:28:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=155363"},"modified":"2021-09-13T16:28:30","modified_gmt":"2021-09-13T22:28:30","slug":"tv-review-endgame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/13\/tv-review-endgame.html","title":{"rendered":"TV Review: “Endgame”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The “arrogant and eccentric asshole genius who solves crimes” trope is an ancient one (hey, Sherlock!), and “… but never leaves his house” is also a sizeable subcategory (think Nero Wolfe, among many others). Endgame<\/em> fits pretty neatly into that setup, but is sufficiently charming and innovative to have deserved a longer run than it got.<\/p>\n

\"Endgame<\/a><\/p>\n

Running on Canadian TV 2011-12, it’s the story of Arkady Balagan, an ex-pat Russian chessmaster living as a hermit in a Vancouver luxury hotel, unable to leave after witnessing the fiery killing of his fiancee, Rosemary, in front of the place. Unable to travel for competition purses, and not earning enough money from pay-to-play chess games with the hoi-polloi<\/em>, Arkady backs into a career as an amateur solver of mysteries (usually murders), using his analytical skills, his ability to read opponents, his talent at visualization, and just plain old being the smartest guy in the room. Being a melancholic Russian who drinks a lot apparently doesn’t hurt, either.<\/p>\n

Since he can’t leave the Huxley hotel (and since they can plausibly set only so many murders inside of the place), he ends up making use of the usual varied band of helpers as legmen, on- and off-premises: the game theory grad student who’s willing to be paid in games with the master, the bartender at the hotel who serves him so much booze, the savvy immigrant housekeeping staffer, the sister of his fiancee Pippa (who’s usually pursuing leads about Rosemary’s murder), and, occasionally, the obnoxious head of hotel security who’d actually love to throw him out on his ass.<\/p>\n

\"Endgame<\/a><\/p>\n

This is not deeply original TV, nor the most innovatively-written thing you might watch, but it does quite a nice job of the tropes it uses. Chess lends itself to the plots in various clever ways. Arkady’s visualized puzzling things out (where he steps into the scenes he’s speculating about) is fun. And the mysteries (most, but not all, of them about murder) are pretty well written.<\/p>\n

Shawn Doyle<\/a> as Arkady does great Russian, and plays the bored, entitled, asshole eccentric in quite the entertaining fashion. The supporting players all do nicely with what they’re given, and most of them get some time in the plot spotlight over the course of the 13 episodes.<\/p>\n

\"Endgame\"<\/a>The weakest part of\u00a0Endgame<\/em> is, ironically, the motivating force behind Arkady’s dilemma: the mysterious daylight murder of his fiancee. This is a key element in the early episodes, with Arkady certain (to the point of alienating folk) that it was a KGB hit on him, because he’s donated so much money to pro-democracy movements in Russia, but as the season wends on, Arkady seems less and less invested in the murder, even as the plot being revealed around it gets bigger, hitting a flashpoint in the last episode. The contrast is confusing, and muddies what should have been a much more solid through-line to the series.<\/p>\n

Endgame<\/em> ran on Showcase TV in Canada, but didn’t do well ratings-wise and was canceled. It was rerun by Hulu, with hopes that it might do well enough to warrant a second season, but no go. It’s currently viewable at Imdb.com TV (through Amazon Prime), though it can take a while to find, as any search for “Endgame” keeps pulling up some stupid superhero flick.<\/p>\n

Overall, I thought it worth the time I invested into watching through it. It reminded me, a bit, of the much more successful US series The Mentalist\u00a0<\/em>(the eccenric, unlikeable, genius, outsider crime-solver driven a bit nuts by the murder of his beloved). I do wish we’d had a chance to see more of Endgame,\u00a0<\/em>but I enjoyed what we got.<\/p>\n