Here lies another victim of the Trekkies. “Live Shot” was another of the fledgling — and now defunct (small wonder, there) — UPN’s early shows that didn’t survive the network’s turbulent early goings. And, while “Deadly Games” was a mere confection of a show (entertaining but not particularly profound), “Live Shot” was a masterpiece of a soap opera-ey look into the lives of staff members at a news network. A talented cast of character actors — including Hill Harper, Eddie Velez, Jeff Yagher and the venerable David Birney — helped to act out a convincing, albeit melodramatic, portrayal of what it was like to be the one’s experiencing and then reporting the news, with the trials brought on by their personal lives thrown into the mix.
Well photographed, well written and well acted, “Live Shot” was misplaced on a network drawing most of its viewership from hordes of geeks bent on watching people in pajamas fly through space in the lap of luxury (and I say that as a fan of “Star Trek:TOS” and the movies based on that series). If a hatchet should have been taken to anything at UPN, it was to the necks of the executives who made bad decision after bad decision and led the network to an early demise because they had no clue how to discern quality from crap. – Steve Soldwedel