Dead Zone 5.2: "Independence Day"

Written by Adam Targum
Directed by Chris Bruno


During the fourth season, I was rather critical of the stand-alone episodes. In particular, I was bothered by the apparent lack of originality. A lot of the stories were predictable, without the deep character study that can alleviate some of the effects. This episode seems to be an odd hybrid of the clever storytelling of the first couple of seasons and the predictable plotting of more recent years.

The predictable element, I thought, was the revelation that the cop was actually the escaped convict. That was telegraphed to the point of being annoying for the rest of the episode. The moment Johnny had the vision when speaking to the “cop”, it was obvious where things were going. That left me searching high and low for something worth watching, and thankfully, the rest of the episode was interesting enough to do the trick.

I liked the fact that all the elements that would come together in the end were introduced piece by piece, out of context, so that a good amount of time was spent working out how the threads would intersect. It wasn’t quite as interesting as episodes like “Precipitate” from the second season, but it was a lot more intricate than many of the fourth season stand-alone episodes.

The best elements of the episode were the smaller moments. The main characters have been the victim of poor characterization for a little while now, mainly as the writers have attempted to lighten up the tone of the show and make it more “viewer friendly”. But the solution (at least, for this episode) is coming up with a fun guest cast. Bruce gets to flirt with a hottie, the bikers were a complete hoot, and Johnny got to run into groupies of a very different sort. The bikers alone were worth the time!

There is, of course, the lingering question of “re-watchability”. An episode can be somewhat clever and entertaining, but that doesn’t mean that it’s something you would want to watch repeatedly (or, say, with commentary on a DVD set). This was a very pleasant episode, but it was also rather lightweight. There’s no long-term consequence, even from a character perspective.

Writing: 1/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 1/4

Final Rating: 6/10