Techtite's TV Reviews!

"Push, Nevada showed more and more promise with every episode, yet was cancelled in a mere 7 weeks. Why, ABC? WHY???"

---from the review

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The solution to the million dollar puzzle: Don't worry about spoilers; I solved it too slow, and just got an automated message saying "Thanks for playing." Bummer. However, here's the full solution, to anyone interested:

1) The Clues. The first episode was the amount, $1,045,000, which was a freebie and as the final clue revealed, omitted from the actual puzzle.

2) The following 6 episode clues, in order, were: Television, Orange, Peter Pan, G, Morse Code, and a commercial site, www.toyota18.com.

3) in the last episode to air (#7), the last 60 seconds had "Jim Profrock" reveal the clues for episodes that never aired: Five, Longitude, Underwear, Southeast, Bodnick, and Eliot. The announcement was made for clue #14 to be during Monday Football.

4) After kickoff, nationwide, "Profrock" revealed the final clue was: "Ignore the first clue, then: 5th place, 1st, 9th, 1st, 5th, 7th, 4th, 1st, 2nd, 7th, 5th, and 2nd places, in order." Behind him was an inconspicuous sign of of an EYE, and equal sign, and the letter "I".

5) Using the numerical clues in order with the word clues, you take that letter (5th, 1st, 7th) of each word, in order, to form the word "VONGEYELNAIL." Taking the incongruous "EYE = I" clue into effect, the word would now be "VONGILNAIL."

6) These referred to letters to a phone (DOH!). calling this 866 number first made you the WINNER!

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Feel free to contribute. As always, review submissions are accepted!

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Push, Nevada

A Review by Techtite

(review posted October 28th, 2002)

When has any show worth watching started out as a ratings smash hit? Let's see the track record: Star Trek The Next Generation began with a laughable mission involving two space jellyfish sharing a hug (no, I'm serious). Melrose Place began without Heather Locklear. Seinfeld began with no jokes whatsoever (sorry, Jerry, though it's the truth and I'm trying to make a point here). As for ABC's current, longest-running drama still on the air, The Practice; that began as TV Guide's winner of "The Best Show You're Not Watching" Award. One and all of these shows had promise if given a chance...and were given that chance. Meanwhile, Push, Nevada showed more and more promise with every episode, yet was cancelled in a mere 7 weeks. Why, ABC? WHY???

Not much to review for a show only on the air 7 times, though here a short summary for those who never got "Pushed." Jim Prufrock (Derek Cecil), IRS Agent, is sent an unsolicited fax from Push, Nevada, with evidence that the town had some seriously crooked money schemes going on; so crooked, in fact, that $1,045,000 was just stolen from the town's casino, which was money that wasn't even supposed to exist! Who sent him this informative fax, and why? That's what Jim drives to Push to find out. However, as you'd expect, tax evasion is the least of this town's problems, where the citizens seem hypnotized to love gambling, the two-officer police force treat every suspicious death as an "obvious suicide," and just about everyone in town wants Profrock to leave, NOW.

Fortunately, as the pilot episode proved, Jim Profrock is not easily swayed when it comes to upholding the law. So, he stays in Push only to come across numerous plot surprises not unlike Twin Peaks, only without the Lodge Of Good/Lodge of Evil supernatural stuff. Indeed, there are evil forces at work in Push, though none that require the help of Scully and Mulder of The X-Files. This was a fantastic scam that was even more fantastic because it could likely happen; that was half of the series' charm.

Of course, cynics who never saw the show would judge it merely on its sales gimmick, where the stolen $1,045,000 was "real" and if you solved the mystery before Profrock did, you'd win the money! Every week a repetitive element of the dialog, background, or foreground would reveal a weekly clue. Use the clues upon the final episode, splice them together, and you'd have the location of the stolen money --all $1,045,000 of it, for real!-- and you'd win the game. Here's why I really have to hand it to TV series creators Ben Affleck and Sean Bailey (and their crew); they went through with the contest anyway, and gave away the grand prize after all. In case you wondered: the million-plus prize was given to Mark Nakamoto, 24, of West New York, New Jersey. Congrats, Mark; the rest of us can check my handy-dandy "Sidebar" at right, for the now-online-everywhere solution...

However, as much as I hate ending this review as quickly as ABC did the actual series, there's not much else to say about a show that lasted only 7 episodes. Well, there is the one truth of the matter: in the end, this show would've been cool if it survived. True, it might not have had much longevity after the contest expired, and yet it was an intriguing show nonetheless. My compliments in particular to actor Derek Cecil, whose Profrock performance was strong yet sympathetic at the same time, making viewers root for the guy, as he would uncover every uncanny clue he could find. Unfortunately, the final episode left him with as many questions as viewers, though kudos to the writers of the show, to give the full story to online fans! Logging onto enochonline.com offered you the chance to download The Push Experiment, a booklet intended for publication upon the actual series finale...yet the series never really made it that far. Thanks for clearing up so many lose ends, guys, by any means necessary. If only ABC would've allowed us to see them as time went on, in the actual show. Sadly, it was never given a decent chance.

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