"Peter Pan Live" — Page 25

"How could the newspaper critics have seen this show and made their deadlines for the morning editions?"

It is called the internet.

The unfortunate truth is that Walken did exactly what he was picked to do... Deliver a strung-out, disaffected performance with interludes of surreal but talented dancing. In other words, be the quintessential Walken.

If this had been on ABC instead, we could have had the Sarah Hyland/Eric Stonestreet Pan and Hook we never knew we always wanted.

Goodness that thing was BORING! Bloated to all hell with the new material. To be fair I found the 1960 version boring as well (fell asleep on it) and I have a hard time seeing how adding so much was meant to liven it up. My sister apparently fell asleep during it and I don't blame her. I did enjoy hearing the tunes of my two favorite DO-RE-MI songs though. (And found it amusing that a commercial using "Make Someone Happy" aired right after the "Vengeance/Ambition" song)

I do hate this version in general, I just don't think it's very good, but they made it especially lifeless tonight. Even my absolute favorite song "Never Neverland," which I usually find oddly moving was deprived of all life. The recently posted Sandy Duncan rendition is glorious.

The two leads were problematic in different ways. Williams was fine, but just there. She sung and acted fine but had a kindof glassy attitude like she was thinking over every move in her brain a thousand times. Walken was a hoot in the worst way, though his entourage of campy pirates outshone him. His "performance" was baffling, so out there and spacey. Those cuts to him during the commercial breaks were utterly hilarious.

The new songs were nice but served only to bog down the already snail-paced show. I thought the new "Ugg-A-Wugg" was dull and had none of the great flow the original lyrics had. It was done too slowly and seriously.

My favorite parts were the first section before Peter arrived and the end portion after the return from Neverland. And those mighty fine Lost Boys.

I also liked how they cut the "building the house" thing from the song "Wendy." Always thought that was dumb.

Kelli of course killed it (as did Borle though I thought he had very little to do), and the end scene was actually extremely well done and surprisingly moving. If only the whole show was like that. Too little too late for me though.

P.S. Of course AfterEight made it about hating Sondheim. And he claims WE drag him into every subject endlessly.

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I really though the whole story and music was splendid, but... something is missing. Both Sound of Music and Peter Pan had a lack of energy, emotion, passion and spontaneity when doing it. They were so afraid of doing something live(and the possibility of 'everything can go wrong') that they forgot to put their confidence, love and strenght into it! The audience felt it...

Any places to watch online yet?

While the production was not the best done, I still found it enjoying and fun to watch.

I wrote up a review which can be read here: http://thecreativepensieve.blogspot.com/2014/12/faith-trust-and-pixie-dust-reviewing.html

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I've read through most of these, and I have to side with those who found is a huge misstep. To my eye, Williams and Walken sunk the whole thing in the first 20 minutes. It just got slogger and weirder as it went along. It just wasn't fun and joyous and breezy, which the original, for all its flaws, surely was.

I hope they have finally learned that putting someone who has never performed in a Broadway musical in a nationally televised live Broadway musical hurts the show and the performer. Everyone just looks bad. Let's hope they do a show with all Broadway names, and the whole thing will be better.

"Favorite moment: When Christopher Walken addresses Christian Borle as "Shmee." In his defense, the name may have been misspelled on the TelePrompTer he was obviously reading from all evening."

Believe it or not, there were NO teleprompters or cue cards used. Walken took a mental trip to Walken World.

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To answer the question how the reviews got in so fast... Monday-Wednesday they had full dress rehearsals that were filmed. We might see a rather different version in the DVD. Maybe even in the re-airing. I know they are going to work on the wires in post and are probably doing that as I type this.

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BrodyFosse, I actually agree with you! I re-watched it tonight for research (possible SNL sketch). It is a bit better the second time around. It is only 2 hours and fifteen minutes without commercials. With editing, they can bring it closer to 2 hours. The Peter Pan based TV commercials helped drag the whole thing out and destroyed the flow of the show.

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I'll take this over reality TV, the Kardasians or The Fake Housewives any day!

"the backlash against the backlash, before a backlash"

I'm getting this on a t-shirt in some sort of hipster font.

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I don't think Williams "sucked" at all. I think she was actually very good. Is she Duncan, no. Did I expect her to be similar to Duncan? Yes, and in the ways I expected her to be, she was.
The problem is not that she couldn't let loose, the problem is that she was hampered by a script, director, a flight rig, a scenic designer and a tv director that REQUIRED her to e restrained. That is unfortunate.