Original Airdate: January 23, 1998
1) The Plane
Michael's a pilot, following in the footsteps of his father, who died in a terrible crash when Michael was young. After landing at a small airstrip to pick up a package, Michael reminisces a bit about his father, saddened most by the fact he lost his father's wings years back. What Michael doesn't know is that there's a fuel leak on his plane, and discovers that only when a mysterious individual steals his plane, and crashes. Upon getting to the crash site, Michael looks into the cockpit to see no body, but his father's wings hanging - in short, Michael's father stole his plane in order to save Michael's life.
It wasn't hard to see where this story was going from the beginning, but at the same time, I thought it was sentimental enough, without overdoing it, to be enjoyable. Brian Van Holt, who played Michael, had that all-American boy look to him which gave credence to the idea he's a pilot, and while there was occasional corny lines (especially toward the end), The Plane was an enjoyable enough segment. I rated this segment as "True."
Rating for story: Above average
2) The Gun
With a recent string of robberies in the neighborhood, along with the fact her husband is leaving town, a woman worries about whether or not the gun her husband taught her to use would be enough to protect her. She had a dream, in fact, where she wakes up, hears a thief, and attempts to shoot him, but the gun won't go off, which isn't helping matters any. One night shortly after her husband leaves, she does hear noises - upon investigating, she sees who she believes is a thief, and wildly fires at the figure multiple times. The gun never goes off, though, which is lucky - the individual is her son, back from college. Hysterical because she almost killed her son, she drops the gun, which bounces down the stairs, causing a shot to fire - hitting a robber who was hiding in the house, killing him,
This story is a hoot in a few ways. One, the idea of a gun shooting only the "dangerous" and "bad" people, while not shooting at family members, seems to come out of some NRA member's fantasy. The idea that this, as shown, is possible causes hearty chuckles from myself. And the woman, played by Molly Cheek (by the way, fun fact: she played Jim's mother in the American Pie movies, if you're familiar with them) seems rather prone to overacting - her scream as she shoots at the mysterious figure is just ridiculously lengthy, bordering on being comedically so. I mean, the story itself isn't a necessarily bad one, but the ending was just a bit much, and all-in-all, while mostly competent, it didn't do much for me. I rated this story as "Not True."
Rating for story: Average
3) The Portrait
A painter seems to have the power over life and death - at least, that's what his clientele believe. Specializing in painting the terminally ill, William Corzine at times doubts his abilities, even though none of his subjects have ever lived to pick their portraits up. One day, a young woman, Michelle, asks for her portrait to be taken. At first, William refuses, as most of his clientele are older, appearing far more sickly. But when Michelle pushes him, he decides to do so, finding out later that she wasn't sick, just depressed over a breakup. Heartbroken over ending her life when she had so much more to live for, he paints his own portrait. He is found the next day by his assistant, dead of an apparent heart attack.
This story rubbed me the wrong way throughout. Firstly, while it's statistically unlikely that with as many subjects as Corzine paints, that all of them would die before they can pick up their painting, given the fact he has a reputation for this, the whole thing could be a self-fulfilling prophecy type deal. Which is likely what happened with Michelle - she got her portrait taken, and believing that she's going to die, commits suicide. It makes more sense given the fact she's depressed. And William's despair over "causing" Michelle's death is odd - even if she wasn't terminally ill, just like all of his other subjects, she willingly wanted to be painted, and chose to die - if that's a person's choice, I don't get why William is so messed up over this one case when he's done it multiple times before with other individuals. It seems rather selective. Painting himself at the ending was a rather expected conclusion, and this story in particular didn't seem to hold much suspense or surprise. While most of the acting was fine, and the story was somewhat decent, this didn't do it for me at all. I rated it "False."
Rating for story: Below average
4) The Pass
Stealing the morgue pass from his roommate's father, who is a doctor at the hospital the two young men are staying at, Kevin and Eddie decide to explore the morgue, as their boredom is near intolerable. After a new arrival is left on a gurney, Kevin dares Eddie to peek at it - Eddie agrees, as long as the two of them can leave once he's done so. Unfortunately, things go downhill from here, as Eddie pulls back the sheet and stares into the eyes of what appears to be himself; already afraid of his own mortality, he dies due to a heart problem. Kevin wakes up the next morning to hear the nurses talking about what a shame it is that the doctor lost two sons the previous night - one due to a heart issue, all because he saw his twin brother's body, who died in a car accident.
This story, much like The Gun, just seems a bit on the ridiculous side. Make no mistake, I believe it to be a true story, as it's entirely possible, but the overacting is just too much. Eddie's scream when he sees what he believes to be himself (pictured above) is one of the funniest things I've heard in the last week. It just doesn't ring true whatsoever. The story on it's own is perfectly fine, but the actors didn't make it believable, as far as I'm concerned. It's an amusing story as it is, but given the subject matter, I'd have expected something more.
Rating for story: Below average
5) The Caller
Clive Kincaid is a shock jock who gets his thrills mocking his callers, which he does quite often. One night, during a storm, he gets a repeat caller, claiming to be his long-lost son. While the producers can't hear any caller, Clive is driven off the wall by the words of the caller, along with seeing things pop up around the studio. Eventually, Clive breaks down crying, the caller getting what he wanted - Clive to show some remorse for not being a part of his son's life. After the story, we're informed that there was an electrical malfunction, and no call had gotten through to the studio.
The Caller's a decent story - it's not amazing, but it does feel more competent than many of the other segments in this episode. The radio host was a bit of a dick, so I don't feel all that bad for him. Overall, this was an average, fun story. I consider this story to be true, as it's not impossible for a radio host to have a mental breakdown on air (look at Alex Jones, for example).
Rating for story: Average
It's sad, really, but the first episode of the second season of this series isn't really all that amazing or memorable. Overacting plagues a few of the stories (The Gun and The Pass, mostly), and were it not for the first story, which I enjoyed probably more than I usually would have given it's predictable path, this episode would be veering toward being rated below average.
Truth be told, the only note-worthy thing about this episode is the introduction of our new host, Jonathan Frakes, taking over from James Brolin. Frakes isn't all that different from Brolin, and I suspect that nothing large will change during his tenure as host. Both Brolin and Frakes seem charismatic and well-spoken, so either way, you're in for a decent time.
Still, this episode really didn't offer up the best it could have. Not only that, but my rankings insofar as whether the stories were true or not didn't end up to well, as I only got one correct. If you've not been keeping track with my overall score, here you are:
For episode: 1/5
Overall: 12/35
We still have plenty of episodes left, so theoretically I could get out of the slump I've been in, but thus far, my guessing ability has been rather lacking in accuracy.
But back to this episode, it was really a far more average affair than you'd hope from this series. Even The Plane, which was the only story I rated above average, wasn't really a classic story such as previous segments (such as The Subway and The Viewing were), So the second season is getting off to a rough start, but hopefully with the coming episodes, the quality of the stories will pick up a bit.
Rating: Average
Next episode
No comments:
Post a Comment