MONDO EXTRAS

We open with a really depressing promo for The Jay Leno Show, in which he looks almost as excited about his new project as we are. That's a nice way to start the show.

Abrupt transition into really beautiful helicopter shots through a lush gorge somewhere that's supposed to be Africa (and very well might be), but also kind of looks like Lost, so I'm not going to get Hawaii out of my head for the whole pilot. Anyway, Rome's James Purefoy is VO-ing over the shot about how not very many people in the world are rich, while the few who are don't seem to be very happy. We are all so miserable! But not Rome's James Purefoy, he claims. He says he's happy -- most of the time, though he admits he has his demons.

Now he's racing barefoot on a dirtbike through the jungle, which is really quite hazardous. He explains he's racing against time through Nigeria. Now some commando-types shoot the spoke of his dirtbike and send him flying, but he picks himself up, grabs his yellow messenger bag and takes off! Rome's James Purefoy is rich and indestructible!

Then the camera gets all shaky and goes to black and white for a second, and suddenly we're in a gross bar, with a lady bartender incredulously asking him if he actually expects her to believe this crazy ass story. Get in line, lady. The actress is really annoying and bad at her job, but she's the Hurley of the show -- just a-sayin' what I'm a-thinkin' all pilot, so I've decided to make peace with her for the rest of the recap. Sort of.

He keeps insisting that he's not lying, and that he was indeed just trying to get some Cholera vaccines to a village before everyone died. She's like, that is a very grim pick-up line, weirdo. Ooh! And we have a name! And a conveniently nutshell character exposition! Bartender starts firing her sarcasm at will: "Yeah, right, you're Teddy Rist the billionaire businessman. The playboy. You have a plane, a very fuel-efficient plane, you are so green. Whatever, I still don't believe you, even though I know an awful lot about this person, so much so that I would probably also know what he looks like, so there!"

Then we get to look at a picture of the Earth, as Teddy explains he wasn't originally in Nigeria on a Cholera vaccine do-gooding mission; he was originally there on business, something to do with oil. Then we pull in through the Earth, to see Teddy in bed with some naked trick, sleeping off a night of "Bacchanalia," which he helpfully explains is a night of "too much of everything." I'd get pissy about that, but Bacchanalia is not really a word people use after college, so I can see why they felt the need to explain it. Anyway, someone's banging on his door, so he groggily gets up -- and plants his feet into the calf-deep well of water the floor of his hotel room has become. You see, there has been a terrible storm and the whole town's flooded, everyone's drowning, and the hotel has to be evacuated. Okay, Teddy says to the hotel staff trying to save his miserable life, "But there better be coffee." Ass.

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