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I had eagerly been awaiting Wildfire's arrival in the UK for quite a while. It came as a pleasant surprise recently when I saw it was to be aired on British channel Trouble. As a horse lover, I thought the premise was rather exciting (a girl befriending a failed racehorse), and Nana Visitor being a regular was another incentive to watch. How could it go wrong? Very much so apparently. The title would suggest its main character was going to be a horse called Wildfire, but he was hardly seen at all (you could watch one episode of Snowy River and see more horses than you would during a whole season of Wildfire). Instead it focused almost exclusively on the teenage characters. If I wanted to watch a show about a group of youngsters, I'd tune into Dawson's Creek or The Wonder Years, but this series was supposed to be about a horse! The shows official website even fails to acknowledge the title character - and doesn't have a single piece of info on any of the older cast members. The site only has ONE picture of a horse (taken from a distance in silhouette) and they only bothered to spotlight four actors out of an ensemble of over seven. Not exactly giving everyone an equal share of the pie, is it?
Continuity (or lack thereof) was also a major issue on the show. Things that happened in one episode were forgotten in the next, horses kept on changing appearance (Wildfire and Flame being the worst offenders) and the silks seen in the races hardly ever matched those worn by the actors. Having been around horses most of my life, I could tell that not much attention was paid to researching horse care. The riding scenes were not that realistic either. It was obvious that mechanical horses were used in many of them.
The casting was okay as far as television goes. The two stand out cast members were definitely Nana Visitor and the (sadly) late Dennis Weaver. Greg Serano has thus far shown he is only capable of doing one thing and that is walking about looking surly (but that was probably down to bad character development and direction). Nicole Tubiola should have had a lot more acting lessons before being let loose as a series regular. I cringed every time she tried to do an emotional scene, and does she ever stop pouting? Ryan Sypek and Micah Alberti are promising stars of the future, and I was impressed by young Andrew Hoeft's performances. Genevieve Cortese would not have been my first choice as a lead, but she did a reasonably good job as Kris.
I also think the show could have done a lot more to educate its audience about the seedier side of racing. Thousands of thoroughbreds are slaughtered every year simply because they aren't fast enough or if they sustain a career (not life) threatening injury. And a little known, but sickening fact is that more than 90% of North American tracks have contracts with the meat industry. Many also support the manufacturing of Premarin (a drug used by menopausal women). It is made with the urine of pregnant mares who are constantly kept in-foal and when their babies are born, they are taken away and slaughtered. Often to satisfy the demand for foal meat in Japan or to be used in dog food. The mares are also killed when they have out lived their usefulness. The industry also funds animal experimentation programs. A variety of tests are carried out on horses and ponies to see what will affect the performance of racehorses. They include electrocution, vivisection and keeping mares permanently in foal. I will not go into further detail, but I can tell you the "sport" has a lot more dark and nasty secrets.
Wildfire could have been a lot better under a different title (that wouldn't trick its viewers into thinking it was an equine drama) and a more competent writing/production team. The Piller company should have stuck to what they were best at (science fiction and fantasy) and it does not say much when there was only one memorable episode out of an entire season. I refer to the one where Jean says goodbye to her favourite horse Houdini. It was one of the very few in which the horses were major players and Nana Visitor's tears at the end were enough to break your heart too.
My overall opinion is that you should avoid Wildfire if you are looking for a series all about horses.
score 5/10
CavalorCumano 17 February 2008
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1821643/ |
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23-12-2020 23:42:08