Jonathan Price

Perhaps no artist and fellow media theorist worked so fastidiously in the vein of McLuhan as Douglas Davis, albeit directly contrary to what he described as McLuhan’s “apocalyptic” message when he proclaimed, “The medium is not the message. You and I, in all our obstinate, unpredictable glory and complexity, are the message. The ultimate power lies on this, the other side of the TV screen, in the eye and mind of the viewer who can increasingly become the actor.” This performative broadcast – which also functions somewhat as a mini-retrospective of other classic Davis pieces – features Davis’s self-described “investigation into a kind of denial of the physical reality of the medium…[putting] the control over the medium…back into the hands of the human imagination.” Likewise, it directly contradicts VIDEODROME’s association of television and sexuality with pain and control. Whether it does so effectively is up to the viewer…

Two slackers working the final shift cross paths with outcasts and oddballs in interwoven stories of rejection, redemption, and fate. Hunter, a jaded employee who spent the last decade behind the concession stand, must finally face his uncertain future. Movie theatre employees and patrons include the former stuntman trying to charm his way into a free ticket, the ornery theatre owner keeping the slackers in line for one more day, the hungry news reporter, and the Australian cowboy and boomerang-slinging movie star. As day turns to night, the small-town community must reckon with its local theatre finally closing its doors.

À Francfort-sur-le-Main, le détective privé allemand Josef Matula, ancien policier, résout des affaires criminelles tout en collaborant avec un avocat qui est également son meilleur ami (Me Dieter Renz de la saison 1 à 8, Me Rainer Franck de la saison 8 à 17, Me Johannes Voss de la saison 17 à 20 et Me Markus Lessing de la saison 21 à 32), en l'aidant à innocenter ses clients injustement accusés par la police.