God, I love YouTube

I was a big fan of Cupid, the show starring Jeremy Piven that Rob Thomas created in 1998. You fans of Thomas's later creation Veronica Mars who want to condemn the CW to hell for stopping the series, hey, at least it got three seasons. Cupid didn't even get 13 episodes on the air.

But, oh, how I loved it, and it is hands down the series that I would most like to see on DVD. Part of me had hoped that with Piven winning awards, and Thomas the creator of a cult success, whoever owns the rights might see that there's some easy profit to be had.

So far, nada. However, I learned today, quite by accident, that someone started posting the episodes to YouTube. You can find them by searching for "cupid tv show." To give you a little taste, here's the last 10 minutes (more or less) of what may be my favorite episode, "Pick-Up Schticks."

I say "may be" because Cupid is one of those series, for me, where immidiately I think of a favorite episode I think of another. But I think this would have to at least be in my top 3.

By the way I'm assuming that you, like most of the world, missed the series, so you should probably read a couple of things first. Don't worry, they're short. There's a good summary of the premise at the imdb page. And here's a synopsis of the plot of this particular episode from Wikipedia.

Okay, here's the clip. Afterwards I'll be back to say a little something about why I think this is my favorite episode, but please watch the clip first if you're gonna.



By design, Thomas and his collaborators answered the question of whether or not their hero was really Cupid, as he believed, by a series of "maybe not...but maybe" sequences. But as I remember it, for the first handful of episodes they were really playing up the witty, intelligent and romantic aspects of the series and Trevor Hale.

And it was wonderful. But in this episode it becomes clear that if he is not Cupid...then he's really, really disturbed. And I don't mean that in a cheap, "You'd have to be disturbed to turn down a chance to have sex with Sherilyn Fenn" way.

IMO, you can count on the fingers of one hand the series that have encompassed poetry, wit and romance. While at the same time not being afraid to be unamusing sometimes, and not being dainty in the construction of the characters but giving them texture and quality.

And you'd probably have more than a few fingers left over after you'd named Cupid.