Murder In Manhattan –who cares?

Bridgette Regan with friend

Rush call again to a new pilot entitled "Murder in Manhattan" with Annie Potts and Bridgette Regan.  After checking out their bios on IMDB, and getting some arousing reviews from my son about her role in "Legend of the Seeker", I was really looking forward to catching a glimpse of Bridgette.  The pilot’s story dealt with a mother / daughter detective team.  Zzzzzzz.

The first scene was an upscale restaurant –across the street from where we filmed Alpha House just the other week.  The majority of us extra were put in the shadows at the back of the restaurant as “atmosphere” for the main action which was Annie Potts toasting someone of something.  (I remember Annie Potts from "Ghostbusters" and "Designing Women" -her performances are always memorable.)

 

Annie Potts

We were all too far from the center of the main activity to know anything about the scene, and no one told us anything… only a tall PA kept screaming at us to “SHUT UP!” (How rude?!)  We “gentle extras” usually don’t get that kind of a treatment from our “hosts”, and it immediately put us into a bad mood to be treated like that.  Not a good portent for the success of this project.

The second scene dealt with us being pedestrians as red-haired Bridgette and her dark-haired female companion walk by in conversation.  It was an exterior shoot in front of the Hippodrome Building near Bryant Park and the weather was chilly.  Bridgette was stunning but somehow transparent… as though she didn't effect anything. Her companion said something about “sex” and gesticulated as though she was frustrated.  That’s about all I caught as we were told to walk past them. 

Later on the wind kept kicking up, and some of the others began to sneak into the lobby of the Hippodrome to take refuge from the cold.  Luckily it was a short day –we were released at noon!  Great… but the lingering feeling here was that there was no sense of caring about this project.  For some reason, working on this set gave me one of the most meaningless sensations I've ever encountered.  Joy Behar expresses this sentiment best as: "So what –who cares... so what?"