A Man. And His Blog.

Well, the episode was totally average. I expected that the writers would tell episodic story arcs with the identity of the week, but I didn’t expect that it would be so boring for the first episode. And so predictable.

Well, Tom (Bruce Greenwood) took Dr. Bellamy’s identity, is found by the Organization, is trusted to break Ellen (Mimi Craven) - until here, some information came, and the mythology behind the show looks interesting so far. Tom isn’t the only one whose identity was erased, and there is a whole organization behind it. But after the exposition of the episode, it went completely downhill. Hertzog should have continued the path of the character arc, instead of giving me the very predictable case of the “asylum” knowing that Bellamy was Tom, and that it was Ellen’s mission to break Tom. I wonder why the writing went so cryptic on that during the first half of the episode, especially when the Supervisor (George DelHoyo) was calling the Director, just to tell him that he was about to rescue Ellen – why this phone call, when it was all planned against Tom anyway?

Moreover, the second half was pretty much shitty. Beginning with Tom’s unbelievable behavior of being Dr. Bellamy (everybody should have seen that he was somehow lying); the fact that the episode didn’t do anything with the creepy monks (and I’ve waited for something to happen, but nothing did); or Tom not realizing that Ellen was not one of the good girls. Come on, she was talking about wanting to see the negatives, and Tom was so eager to get them, just so let her see them? Why would Ellen even be interested in the negatives? Here alone, Tom should have realized the trap, but nooo…

Okay, maybe it wa snot such an average episode, it was actually bad for today’s standard. I just hope that Tom doesn’t behave that stupid like here all the time, and I hope that there will be more serialized storytelling in the future. Otherwise, I might be yawning and cancelling this show after half a season. 5/10

There were some creepy time-wasting monks

But at the end, it was all about Ellen

Here I am, watching a classic from the 90s. And I didn’t even expect much, through I read that the critics for the series were positive, and it was declared as one of the coolest shows of the year 1995/96 or whatsoever. So I finally looked the episodes up on the internet and started to watch it. And looketh here: I’m intrigued.

Not that the pilot is great, but it kinda manages to mix the ingredients of a good pilot from the 80s and 90s with ingredients of a pilot from today. The story was great, interesting, thrilling, but the pace was slow, absolutely not hectic and time-taking. With only Tom (Bruce Greenwood) to focus on and not having other characters steal screentime, story and development, it gives the writers and producers more time to tell stories, which are actually being important for the series, instead of wasting time with a little sub-plot, not having anything to do with the main arc.

With a little bit of updating, you wouldn’t even notice that the pilot is 16 years old. It stays in interiors most of the time (though I hope it will change), the story doesn’t need a big cast, and it kinda reminds of some of the 80s movies. But you can see that the show was produced in a cheap manner – some editing cuts were terribly placed, as if the interiors weren’t as big and exploitable as the screen wanted to tell me (the scene, where Tom wanted to escape out of the asylum for the first time is such an example), and some of the darker scenes could have needed more light. In the contrary, the explosion scene was completely ridiculous. Just because of the little fire in the building, the whole thing explodes in a matter of seconds, and even Tom’s car parked in front of it blows into the heavens. Here I was really laughing about how useless the pyro effects were, but that the producers wanted to have one, just to make something explode in the pilot.

So, what about the mystery plot? The pilot already gives the information that it’s all about the “Hidden Agenda” picture, but it was neat to realize that Tom alone came to the thoughts, and that it wasn’t mentioned all the time. That Alyson (Megan Gallagher) told him the two are being watched, and they could kill Tom was nice too, giving hope for Tom (and the audience) that some of the people around Tom will start talking, when he is about to do the Jack Bauer. I just didn’t really like the development in the asylum and with Eddie (Ted Levine). It seemed like Eddie was just there to explain that Tom’s identity was stolen, and he is now a man without a name – but without Tom realizing that his identity was stolen. In addition I ask myself why the writers even included the “They could kill you”, when they obviously stole his identity. The question of why and what it has to do with the picture… I hope logical answers are coming throughout the series.

All in all, I was intrigued. Slow-paced, but interesting as hell, and Bruce Greenwood did a nice job. Sometimes you could really believe that he either has gone mad, or just landed in a different dimension, SLIDERS-like. Yet it was not a perfect pilot. 7.5/10

Identity theft results in face-loss

A nobody looks into the mirror...