Peter Pan: So How Was It?

Saturday morning update: Apparently Peter Pan's ratings were about half of what The Sound of Music got last year. Still, NBC says they're committed to the live musical format, and word on the street is that The Music Man could be next year's show, which sounds good to me. It's a lot less "grown men pretending to be young boys surrounded by pirates in pantaloons" and a lot more "Let's have a parade!" And I'm team Christian Borle for Harold Hill. Seventy-six trombones, anyone?

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In a word, weird. Perhaps the show itself, with its strange combination of flying kids, pirates, native Americans and lost boys, isn't really meant to be showcased here in the 21st century. NBC tried to eliminate the worst of the racist parts, but still. It all just looked weird. As expected, Twitter was ablaze with snark, which was fun; my obsession this morning continues to be the wires. Really? They couldn't figure out a way to mask the wires?

Part of the fun with "Event Television" these days is following along on Twitter in real time (#PeterPanLive,) and there's more fun to be had as reviewers try to out-snark each other the morning after:

From Slate: The real problem for Peter Pan Live! was the source material. That is one weird musical! I grew up watching a worn-out VHS of the Mary Martin version (performed live on television in 1960), and while I recalled lots of angst about mothers and aging, I was not quite prepared for the show’s other endlessly odd innuendos. It’s not just the Lost Boys who are longing for a mother, but the grown pirates, too, who want to kidnap the teenage Wendy and make her their mother (but, you know, not in a creepy way). Peter may be a perpetual boy, but that doesn’t stop Tinkerbell, Wendy, and Tiger Lily from territorially fighting over him, a simmering subtext of nasty girl-on-girl competition over an emotionally stunted man-child. (Peter Pan only passes the Bechdel test because Peter is traditionally in drag.) There are the racial issues surrounding Tiger Lily, who in this version got a slightly updated song, but who was still surrounded by men in loincloths and convinced that the white Peter was the “sun and the moon and the stars.” And, as people on Twitter had endless fun pointing out, there was the homoerotic subtext of the Lost Boys (who share one bathtub) and the very muscular pirates, who dance with each other in pantaloons. Even the ticking crocodile, played by a person in a purple spandex suit, was suggestively slinky.

From The Daily Beast: For all of its large-scale production numbers danced expertly by an army of Lost Boy twinks and psychedelic sets designed by someone clearly flying high on some strong fairy dust, the most egregious thing about Peter Pan Live! was that it was an inexcusable bore.

For three hours. The thing was three freaking hours. ...Then there’s the fact that most of the dialogue, particularly anything uttered by a pirate, makes sense only half of the time. (Though there’s no superlative worthy of describing what it’s like to watch Walken say the line, “I’ve placed the plank on the poop.”) There are weird things about Peter Pan, the musical, that you can’t fault for Peter Pan Live!, the production, for. The script has always been a little bit batty, what with the not-so thinly veiled racism and the whole Peter calling Wendy “mother” but also so clearly wanting to bone her the whole time. And Captain Hook just basically being a bitter, vengeful drag queen.

There were, however, specific decisions made by the creative team of Peter Pan Live! And many of those decisions made no sense. Like, why were all the Lost Boys in Neverland dressed like German schoolchildren, but Peter was dressed like the fairy hobo birthed from the bushes that we all know and love? Did the producers just reuse the Von Trapp children from last year and hope that no one would notice?

From Time.com: To make up for arguing, Peter takes Wendy for a moonlit boat ride, and she shows off her vocals with a new song, “Only Pretend,” that fulfills the same function “Kiss the Girl” does inThe Little Mermaid. But it’s unlike the Disney movie in one respect: Wendy is a tween mom and Peter is played by a woman in a drag acting like a boy who won’t grow up, and who willingly answers when Wendy calls him “father” and/or treats him like a son. Peter Pan is worthy fodder for a gender studies doctoral dissertation.

Finally, a couple of thoughts about NBC's relentless and over-the-top promotion of their masterpiece, starring Brian Williams' daughter:  

From the New York Times: Most of all, Ms. Williams had to surmount the hype and overselling of NBC, a helicopter network that smothered this production with fulsome ads and in-house synergy boosts, including a promo for the NBC News anchor Brian Williams, who is the actress’s father. Mr. Williams skipped anchoring the evening news on Thursday to watch his daughter’s premiere, which is understandable. The newscast’s sizable segment about Ms. Williams and her lifelong fascination with Peter Pan was less so.  Thursday’s show couldn’t entirely live up to NBC’s puffed-up expectations, and the energy sagged halfway through. The performance was too long — it ended at 11 p.m., past the bedtime of its target audience of children and their grandparents, and it was possibly too ploddingly respectful. 

From the Washington Post: I am thoroughly exhausted by the ceaseless cross-promotion and logrolling that defines the NBCUniversal realm now. There’s a point where corporate synergy veers into an area of unseemliness. NBC crossed that line long ago, but are they ever embarrassed by it? By the constant fawning over NBC stars on NBC’s late-night talk shows? Or the vacuous nightmare that’s become the “Today” show? Or the utterly joyless, cheap ocean-cruise quality of this year’s telecasts of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and Rockefeller Center tree lighting ceremonies, featuring NBC stars half-heartedly plugging their singing-competition shows, dramas and sitcoms? (Even they must be sick of themselves.)
And with that, I'll say so long and farewell to this year's live musical on television. I'll meet you back here next year for NBC's next live holiday extravaganza, The Music Man!