08.29.07
Posted in Review at 1:17 am by Administrator
Written by Richard Hatem
Directed by James Head
With only a few episodes left for the season, the various plot threads seem to be churning away, driving towards yet another confrontation between Johnny and Greg Stillson. Rather than leaving it abstract, as visions of Armageddon tend to be, the writers have added a more personal component. In short, Sarah is getting closer to Stillson every day, and by helping her uncover the truth about Walt’s secrets, he could quickly slip past her defenses.
Johnny, meanwhile, is on a personal journey of self-discovery, trying to find his footing after so many changes. Walt is dead, Sarah has declared their relationship well and truly over, and Bruce has found a place for himself. This episode sees that process continue. One might think of Alex Sinclair as the perfect woman for Johnny (especially after one look at the gorgeous Jennifer Finnigan), but the writers make it very clear that any such relationship has long been off the table.
In fact, the tone of the episode is very similar to the previous installment. This is less about bringing Alex back into the fold than giving her a positive sendoff. While it gives the audience a chance to enjoy their interaction for what may be the final time, it feels like another example of Johnny losing touch with someone in his world. Or, better put, making one last positive contribution to his friends’ lives before everything goes to hell.
As mentioned previously, the current plot threads seem designed to isolate Johnny and strip away some of the moderating influences in his life. Without that support system, how will Johnny react? Will he continue to be the altruistic troubleshooter that has been his role for six years, or will he slide towards the bitter man familiar from the original novel? It would be intriguing for Johnny to take a darker direction, especially this late in the game.
All that said, this is another episode where the larger implications are more interesting and memorable than the actual story. Were it not for the twists and turns inherent to any Alex Sinclair installment, this would have been utterly conventional. The final twist involving Alex is well done, but really only matters to fans of her character. Yet that is what makes a season arc important in the long run; the deeper connections and layers can give meaning to what would be a disappointing stand-alone.
Writing: 2/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 1/4
Final Rating: 7/10
Permalink
08.23.07
Posted in Review at 12:33 am by Administrator
Written by Scott Shepherd
Directed by Holly Dale
This is an episode with very specific strengths and weaknesses, and it’s interesting to consider how the balance of each factors into the final product. In a sense, this is representative of the season as a whole, specifically the struggle to revamp the status quo and overcome the challenges of the previous production run.
The most positive development is the return, however fleeting, of Bruce. Bruce was critical to Johnny’s character evolution from the beginning of the story, and his absence has been palpable throughout the sixth season. Much of this episode seems to function as an epilogue to Bruce’s involvement in Johnny’s life. Johnny, intended or not, is helping to pay Bruce back for everything he’s done to keep him sane.
We also have the return of Greg Stillson to the forefront, following up on his unusual turn in “Re-Entry”. That episode presented a new Stillson, free of the damaging influence of Janus and no longer destined to bring about Armageddon (for now). This is the same character, but even more benign. Part of the fun in the Sarah/Stillson subplot was searching for the moment when he would reveal some sinister ulterior motive. That never happened, and it does much to support the notion that Stillson could, in the right circumstances, be a good man.
The goal, of course, was to present Bruce as a man finding love and contentment, his place in the world beyond his friendship with Johnny, so Johnny could realize that he wanted the same with Sarah, despite the current issues. As expected, this comes just a bit too late, since Stillson’s purpose in this episode is to begin a relationship with Sarah, pushing Johnny into the proper state of regret and semi-justified resentment.
One could predict that Sarah (and JJ, for that matter) will continue to get closer to Stillson, and Johnny will learn that Stillson has an ulterior motive. Johnny’s bitterness would be established as a reason for dismissing his concerns. This would help to overlap the character and plot arcs within the context of the mythology.
Despite all of the promising character and plot elements, this episode struggled. While it’s great to see Bruce happy in his new life, the mystery at the heart of the episode never seemed to strike a chord. Perhaps Bruce’s distance from the status quo left his current troubles too detached from the rest of the story. The horse race element also reminded me of stock 1980s detective shows, which is not a good association.
One would wonder why Sarah would be so open with Stillson when she was there, even tangentially, during some of his less savory activities in the past. Even if nothing was ever pinned on Stillson, he was knee-deep in enough of it. Very little past history came into their discussions, and that was a little disappointing. That said, Stillson avoided any shots at Johnny and respected Walt, so he may have scored enough points to overcome her concerns.
None of that would have hurt the episode overmuch. Instead, two other issues undercut the strengths of the episode. Throughout the episode, the editing was very rough, and particularly in the first half of the episode, the scene transitions were abrupt and the flow was ragged. It felt like the episode had been running long and needed drastic cuts to get under time. Far worse, however, was the extreme and jarring Visa product placement. It couldn’t have been worse if Johnny turned to the camera and launched into a commercial. Product placement is a necessary evil, but when it’s this intrusive, it hurts the overall production.
Writing: 2/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 1/2
Style: 1/4
Final Rating: 6/10
Permalink
08.16.07
Posted in Review at 12:29 am by Administrator
Written by Katie Wech
Directed by James Head
With the season now marching towards a conclusion, it’s time for some of the plot threads to start coming together. The most recent episodes have represented an important turn in the relationship between Sarah and Johnny, and as expected, what seemed like a foregone conclusion at the end of “Numb” has turned into a lost opportunity for happiness.
Johnny’s decision not to tell Sarah about his vision of Walt’s death (or, in fact, his attempts to save Walt and change his friend’s fate) has indeed come back to haunt him. The thrust of this episode is the revelation of this information. Without proper setup earlier in the season, the pieces couldn’t have fallen into place in the current tragic configuration, and that planning is the strength of the season thus far.
Johnny had to have the opportunity to open up with Sheriff Turner; that was the purpose of “Interred”. Similarly, “Numb” (and to a lesser extent, “Outcome”) brought Johnny and Sarah closer together, so Johnny would have to face his own doubts and guilt about Walt. Other episodes provided the context for Sheriff Turner’s conflict in this episode regarding Walt and his secrets. While one could quibble about the consistency of the writing from week to week, it’s clear that the new writing staff is making an effort to connect the dots.
As if to illustrate the point about the stand-alone elements of this season’s episodes, this installment reaches high but slightly misses the mark. All things being equal, this would have made for an interesting Rev. Purdy episode. Without the past history with Johnny, however, the exploration of faith and belief doesn’t quite ring true. Also, had Purdy been involved, his decision to keep Father Tony’s “exorcism” secret would have carried more weight.
That said, it’s interesting to see Johnny’s own perspective on his visions. Given the past six years of his life, it could be a case of protesting too much. While there’s an apparent genetic and scientific component to his visions, there’s also an apparent purpose. Science can explain how the visions happen, but the question of why is still open to interpretation.
Writing: 2/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 1/4
Final Rating: 7/10
Permalink
08.08.07
Posted in Review at 12:08 am by Administrator
Written by Sam Ernst and Jim Dunn
Directed by Erik Canuel
Much like the episode of “The 4400” that aired on the same night, this was a “bottle show”. Nearly everything in the episode took place within the confines of the train station at the heart of the story, centering on multiple iterations of a single vision. This is the second such episode in a row, but in an odd way, it works. It serves as a capable follow-up to the previous installment, which brought the relationship between Johnny and Sarah to an interesting place.
Instead of stepping right past the issues and settling into a relationship for the two characters, the writers keep things nebulous. Johnny isn’t sure where things stand, even after Sarah’s apparent declaration of intent, and his past history is at the forefront of his mind. Without getting into the subject too deeply, especially without Sarah in the episode, the writers touch on the delicate emotional matters that stand in the way.
The previous installment set up the case for setting aside the roadblocks. Past episodes have shown that Walt’s death has a tendency to drive Johnny and Sarah back together, if Johnny’s visions are taken as accurate. This episode, coming sometime well after the infamous kiss, gives us a better look at Johnny’s concerns. This could be setting up a situation where Johnny, wanting to prevent a disaster, sets himself up for heartache by waiting too long. That’s actually a minor part of the episode, but it does alleviate some of the concern that Johnny and Sarah are moving too quickly after Walt’s death.
Most of the episode is another look at Johnny’s psychological issues, which is typically the side effect of a “bottle show” in the first place. Walt’s death and the subsequent introduction of Sheriff Turner has highlighted Johnny’s tendency to take action without anyone else’s consent, as though he has the right to act because he has the visions. This episode reinforces a related issue: Johnny can become so focused on the big picture that he doesn’t see how his actions can make things better on the small scale.
This could be an effect of Bruce’s departure earlier this season. Bruce was there to remind Johnny that it wasn’t all about preventing Armageddon; it was about changing things for the better one day at a time. Without Bruce, is Johnny beginning to lose that perspective again? On the other hand, Johnny is practically impulsive when it comes to helping others, so perhaps it’s a matter of Johnny’s perception.
Whatever the case, most of this episode is a string of smaller moments, all of which get better because of Johnny’s intervention, linked to an impending disaster that Johnny himself might cause. That chain of events is the highlight of the episode; the relationships at play last just long enough to stay interesting without being overextended. The conversations about Sarah keep this episode from being completely stand-alone, tying it to the larger season arc, which at this point, could have been a point of contention. All in all, a solid episode for the middle of the season.
Writing: 2/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 1/4
Final Rating: 7/10
Permalink
08.01.07
Posted in Review at 12:19 am by Administrator
Written by Dana Greenblatt
Directed by Michael Rohl
Now that the season has hit the mid-point, it seems logical for the writers to make some sort of statement regarding Johnny and Sarah. With the two of them in close proximity, given their history, the emotions are clearly running high. Up to this point, they’ve been keeping those emotions in check, largely due to the circumstances of Walt’s death and the complexity of the family situation. It’s not so much that they don’t want to be together, but that they’ve had several reasons to keep it from happening and attempting to move on beyond their shared past.
The previous episode was designed to remind Johnny of how important and central Sarah is to his world. This episode compliments that by forcing Sarah to consider their history and how much they still mean to each other. The induced coma, while part of the larger mystery, was the device for pushing 12 years of psychological angst to the forefront. Sarah had to contemplate life without Johnny again, and it cut her to the core, breaking down the barriers that circumstance had placed in their way.
If both of them had come to the separate realizations without something to bridge the gap of uncertainty, the momentum for a logical return to romance wouldn’t be there. Instead, the writers manage to use a fairly simple situation as a hook into a mystery that gives Nicole de Boer a chance to tackle some unfamiliar material and Johnny a chance to see things from Sarah’s perspective.
The mystery itself was not particularly compelling. It was easy enough to guess what was happening, and the eventual details did little to give the concept more weight. Instead, it was the clever use of the vision and the interaction between the characters. It was great to see Sarah take action, breaking out of the mold created for her character in previous seasons, and as already mentioned, the structure of the episode made the ending a logical and sensible consequence of the ordeal.
All that said, it is also clearly the mid-point of a larger arc for the two characters, and as much as the relationship might be turning towards the inevitable, this feels less like a resolution and more like the calm before the storm. The happiness of this particular moment will likely be shattered, especially since Walt’s legacy is still lingering in the background. It’s that sense of uneasiness that makes this an interesting development. This is simply not going to last, and the sense of stability now will give Johnny something to fight for on a personal level as things get darker.
With much of the story construction in place and the cast hitting the right notes for the characters, much of the episode’s lackluster tone falls on the direction and editing. The final act especially is rushed and Johnny’s immediate recovery from an induced coma and surgery is hard to reconcile. Some of the editing issues were more reminiscent of the previous two seasons than the new status quo would have suggested.
Writing: 2/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 1/2
Style: 1/4
Final Rating: 6/10
Permalink
