Nothing becomes a Baldwin more than slumming. Alec was the only reason to watch what Hollywood did to Dr. Seuss, and Daniel is so seedy as a private eye in Anonymous Rex that the local birds smack their beaks. But it’s his inner reptile he worries more about; Baldwin and his partner, Sam Trammell, merely look human. Like one tenth of one percent of everybody you see around you in noir Los Angeles, they are dinosaurs in disguise, left over from the killer asteroid. Some of the younger velociraptors are tired of all the pussyfooting. When they seek to provoke a civil war, Baldwin and Trammell must choose sides. As allegories go, Anonymous doesn’t rank with the Seven Valleys of the Sufi lapwing, but it does have Faye Dunaway, pretending to be Chinese, Isaac Hayes, wishing he were Miles Davis, and D.B., as a vegetarian Philip Marlowe.

Anonymous Rex
Saturday, December 4. 9 to 11 P.M.
Sci Fi.

Related:

• Archive: “Television”
• Articles by John Leonard
• Table of Contents: Dec 6, 2004 issue of New York | Subscribe!