Threshold 1.3: "Blood of the Children"
Written by Anne McGrail
Directed by Bill Eagles
In which an incident in Virginia reveals that more people were affected by the alien signal than previously thought, and the trail leads to a military academy with young children…
This is the first episode after the pilot and follow-up aired on the same night, so of everything that has aired so far, this is probably the most indicative of the series’ formula. It left me a little concerned. I freely admit that the setting of the episode did nothing for me, since I don’t like most episodes that focus on young children, given their highly variable talent. I thought that it was a little too easy to have children in jeopardy.
But more to the point, I had a few issues with the concept as a whole. OK, so Caffrey’s reaction to the minor exposure to the alien signal is an indirect connection to those who are fully affected. This provides clues to the current threatening activity, which in turn provides the link to the case and an unconventional way to explore the case, which would otherwise be difficult. Meanwhile, the team continues to work out how the signal is spreading across the world.
What bothers me is that the team needed something like this to make them look into the possibility of exposure beyond the naval vessel in the pilot. They have an enormous amount of information at their disposal (as mentioned in the episode itself as a possible future problem), and yet something so obvious as a plane diverted into the area at the wrong time takes an incident like this to be discovered.
Surprisingly, the support personnel that were completely missing in the second hour of the premiere suddenly appear when it comes down to searching through the military academy. And yet when the time comes, Caffrey is on her own. This is one sequence that really bugs me. Caffrey’s on the run, so she picks a room (seemingly at random), and who just happens to be hiding down there? The main suspect, who comes up with the world’s lamest excuse for being there. And then, for some unknown reason, Caffrey sets off a sprinkler, which doesn’t set off an alarm, which would have been the only reason for doing so!
I suspect it was more about getting the lovely Carla in a skintight shirt, but that’s beside the point. The culmination of the situation doesn’t give me hope for the Threshold team. Shooting the screen shouldn’t have done a thing, if the signal was already being sent. The processor and modem would have been in the bottom portion of the laptop, which wasn’t hit. What I don’t get is why someone didn’t just shut down the connection node. It’s not like the academy could have that many, being in a relatively remote part of Virginia and having only one room with internet access!
So, back to my worry. I’m concerned that the scope of the episodes will be this narrow every week. Or perhaps not every week, but enough to become annoying. The responsibilities of Caffrey and her team are so broad, especially given the growing number of affected humans, that this “on point” approach is not the best use of resources. If Caffrey were to go down in the field, what would they be able to do?
It’s telling when the point of the episode is laid out so clearly (using a silly-looking display) in the final scenes. OK, so they now know that the signal doesn’t affect pre-pubescent members of any species, and that the affected want to propagate the signal by any possible means. This seems to ignore the fact that parts of the signal in the second episode were already affecting people for no apparent reason. There are a lot of issues that need to be addressed before I’ll feel as though this series is reaching its potential.
Writing: 1/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 1/4
Final Rating: 6/10
Directed by Bill Eagles
In which an incident in Virginia reveals that more people were affected by the alien signal than previously thought, and the trail leads to a military academy with young children…
This is the first episode after the pilot and follow-up aired on the same night, so of everything that has aired so far, this is probably the most indicative of the series’ formula. It left me a little concerned. I freely admit that the setting of the episode did nothing for me, since I don’t like most episodes that focus on young children, given their highly variable talent. I thought that it was a little too easy to have children in jeopardy.
But more to the point, I had a few issues with the concept as a whole. OK, so Caffrey’s reaction to the minor exposure to the alien signal is an indirect connection to those who are fully affected. This provides clues to the current threatening activity, which in turn provides the link to the case and an unconventional way to explore the case, which would otherwise be difficult. Meanwhile, the team continues to work out how the signal is spreading across the world.
What bothers me is that the team needed something like this to make them look into the possibility of exposure beyond the naval vessel in the pilot. They have an enormous amount of information at their disposal (as mentioned in the episode itself as a possible future problem), and yet something so obvious as a plane diverted into the area at the wrong time takes an incident like this to be discovered.
Surprisingly, the support personnel that were completely missing in the second hour of the premiere suddenly appear when it comes down to searching through the military academy. And yet when the time comes, Caffrey is on her own. This is one sequence that really bugs me. Caffrey’s on the run, so she picks a room (seemingly at random), and who just happens to be hiding down there? The main suspect, who comes up with the world’s lamest excuse for being there. And then, for some unknown reason, Caffrey sets off a sprinkler, which doesn’t set off an alarm, which would have been the only reason for doing so!
I suspect it was more about getting the lovely Carla in a skintight shirt, but that’s beside the point. The culmination of the situation doesn’t give me hope for the Threshold team. Shooting the screen shouldn’t have done a thing, if the signal was already being sent. The processor and modem would have been in the bottom portion of the laptop, which wasn’t hit. What I don’t get is why someone didn’t just shut down the connection node. It’s not like the academy could have that many, being in a relatively remote part of Virginia and having only one room with internet access!
So, back to my worry. I’m concerned that the scope of the episodes will be this narrow every week. Or perhaps not every week, but enough to become annoying. The responsibilities of Caffrey and her team are so broad, especially given the growing number of affected humans, that this “on point” approach is not the best use of resources. If Caffrey were to go down in the field, what would they be able to do?
It’s telling when the point of the episode is laid out so clearly (using a silly-looking display) in the final scenes. OK, so they now know that the signal doesn’t affect pre-pubescent members of any species, and that the affected want to propagate the signal by any possible means. This seems to ignore the fact that parts of the signal in the second episode were already affecting people for no apparent reason. There are a lot of issues that need to be addressed before I’ll feel as though this series is reaching its potential.
Writing: 1/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 1/4
Final Rating: 6/10
posted by John Keegan | 16:15
1 Comments:
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