Dead Zone 5.7: "Symmetry"
Written by Loren Segan and Christina Lynch
Directed by Rachel Talalay
With the season already winding down towards the season (and possible series) finale, I’m rather pleased with the fact that the quality of the episodes has kicked up a notch. I still don’t feel like it has hit the same heights as the first couple of seasons, but relative to the fourth season and the beginning of the fifth, things are looking up!
A lot of people (including the producers) compared this episode to the classic “Precipitate”, but I’m not sure that’s a great idea. “Precipitate” was a lot better, especially in terms of clean storytelling. No matter the complexity, the audience had a good sense of what was happening. This episode felt a lot more muddled and a bit more tentative in places.
At the same time, I think this was a lot more ambitious than I expected out of the fifth season, and it kept my interest for the entire hour. Right up until the final revelation, I wasn’t sure how it all fit together. Most of the recent episodes have been easy to decipher, so it was fun to have an episode that kept me guessing. If nothing else, it distracted from some of the minor storytelling mishaps along the way.
I wasn’t thrilled with Bruce’s involvement with the episode, since I’m still not sure how that was supposed to work, and I think some of the transitions between characters were hard for Anthony Michael Hall to communicate. One thing I’ve complained about is the need for every episode to have an underlying “message”, so the relative lack of a message in this episode was a good thing. Even so, it was a little easy for Johnny to defuse the situation at the very end, especially given how psychotic Cole had been right up until that point.
The director did a nice enough job of keeping the story straight and avoiding the most obvious drawbacks of the plot device in question, but there were a few moments where the story was almost impossible to follow. I can easily see how people would get frustrated with the episode, but it did reward patience. And considering how pathetic the continuity can be on this show, it was interesting to see the knife from “Panic” come back into play.
This is the third episode in a row that I actually liked. Even if I still don’t think that the episodes are better than average, especially relative to earlier successes, it is nice to see that the writing staff still has some measure of creativity left in the barrel.
(As a sidenote: I also have a podcast associated with my various reviews called “Dispatches from Tuzenor”. Recent episodes have highlighted “The Dead Zone”, so it might be something of interest . Go to http://entil2001.libsyn.com if you want to listen!)
Writing: 2/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 1/4
Final Rating: 7/10
Directed by Rachel Talalay
With the season already winding down towards the season (and possible series) finale, I’m rather pleased with the fact that the quality of the episodes has kicked up a notch. I still don’t feel like it has hit the same heights as the first couple of seasons, but relative to the fourth season and the beginning of the fifth, things are looking up!
A lot of people (including the producers) compared this episode to the classic “Precipitate”, but I’m not sure that’s a great idea. “Precipitate” was a lot better, especially in terms of clean storytelling. No matter the complexity, the audience had a good sense of what was happening. This episode felt a lot more muddled and a bit more tentative in places.
At the same time, I think this was a lot more ambitious than I expected out of the fifth season, and it kept my interest for the entire hour. Right up until the final revelation, I wasn’t sure how it all fit together. Most of the recent episodes have been easy to decipher, so it was fun to have an episode that kept me guessing. If nothing else, it distracted from some of the minor storytelling mishaps along the way.
I wasn’t thrilled with Bruce’s involvement with the episode, since I’m still not sure how that was supposed to work, and I think some of the transitions between characters were hard for Anthony Michael Hall to communicate. One thing I’ve complained about is the need for every episode to have an underlying “message”, so the relative lack of a message in this episode was a good thing. Even so, it was a little easy for Johnny to defuse the situation at the very end, especially given how psychotic Cole had been right up until that point.
The director did a nice enough job of keeping the story straight and avoiding the most obvious drawbacks of the plot device in question, but there were a few moments where the story was almost impossible to follow. I can easily see how people would get frustrated with the episode, but it did reward patience. And considering how pathetic the continuity can be on this show, it was interesting to see the knife from “Panic” come back into play.
This is the third episode in a row that I actually liked. Even if I still don’t think that the episodes are better than average, especially relative to earlier successes, it is nice to see that the writing staff still has some measure of creativity left in the barrel.
(As a sidenote: I also have a podcast associated with my various reviews called “Dispatches from Tuzenor”. Recent episodes have highlighted “The Dead Zone”, so it might be something of interest . Go to http://entil2001.libsyn.com if you want to listen!)
Writing: 2/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 1/4
Final Rating: 7/10
posted by John Keegan | 17:27
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