Josh: No Ordinary Family: Episode Six (review)

'NO ORDINARY VISITORS'
JIM: Jim's self restraint is tested when his overbearing in-laws unexpectedly come to visit the Powells, forcing the family to not use their powers. So, Jim struggles to keep his mouth closed when Steph's father constantly degrades him. Meanwhile, Jim is sneaking out of the house during the night, assissted by George, to investigate the spike of home invasions in Pacific Bay. The police have no leads on who is part of the invasions but with Daphne's help Jim draws up a portrait of the gang-leader whose face was burnt by the son of the victimised family. Eventually, the news get hold of the image and the attacker sees his own face, making him go out to finish off the boy. But, just in time Jim saves the teenager - Trent, as the criminal fires shots. Finally, because of Jim's suspicous actions during the night, Allan (Steph's dad) wrongly accuses Jim of cheating on his wife but all is resolved when Jim tries to explain about the Powells' powers and the in-laws believe Jim is doing charity work. Jim is also finally accepted by Allan to of married the latter's daughter.

STEPHANIE: Steph is unable to use her powers of super speed when her parents come over, as she tries to persuaude her mother - Barbara that she has changed and she isn't always busy. Barbara soon becomes suspicous as she finds lots of trainers and snack bars in the master bedroom but Steph says the shoes are for the poor and Jim says the bars are for him. She is also unable to do any of her work at Global Tech but stil has chance to invite Katie to a disastrous dinner where Allan and Barbara explain their suspicions. The episode ends seeing Barbara tell her daughter that she wished she had been like her daughter when she was her age. This makes Steph happy.

JJ: Allan sees his grandson still as an idiot who he can take advantage of and get money off when the pair play pool. This frustrates JJ who is also being forced to keep his powers a secret but then Jim, also annoyed, allows JJ to use his super-brain. This gets JJ to beat his grandfather, win quite bit of money as well as Allan's beloved car. But JJ cannot drive this for two years, yet he has a car ready and waiting and his grandparents realise he is cleverer than they thought.

DAPHNE: Daphne discovers that when she touches another's skin she can not just hear their thoughts but see them too. This allows her to see the attacker who invaded the victimised family's home by touching Trent. But, after she helps the police by giving them a description of the criminal, Trent is tracked down and is just saved by Jim. Afterwards, she checks with Trent what happened and as she expected he denies anyone was involved with his escape. To end the episode, Daphne gets JJ's new car until he is legal to drive it.

Overall, one of the less strong episodes because of the lack of proper drama, filled with uncessary humour. Yes, I liked the idea of the Powells hiding their powers from the grandparents but a lot of the storyline wasn't needed. I was hopeful for a darker, more high octane episode after witnessing the opening minutes but I was disappointed when the exciting plot was nearly forgotten and used as an add-along. Also, the absence of the story-arc returns to annoy me, I think it's superb and yet ABC fail to show it in the episodes successing the pilot. Otherwise, it was an alright episode but not one of the best at all, I'm disappointed with Ali Adler's script here considering the other great installments he's wrote. Maybe Marc Guggenheim's 'No Ordinary Mobster' next week will make up for this week.
Thanks, Josh.

Review: Being Human 3.3: Type Four

"I thought we were supposed to be the scary ones?"

While last week tried for some dark humour, this week hit the funnies at my end of the spectrum, all the while supporting a brilliant plot that pulled on the heartstrings. The balancing of the four subplots worked incredibly well, with the central line holding the others together while subtley expanding the series' mythology. Notably, it contained a lot more intimate comedy moments, much resembling the tone of the first series in its quirky mix of group comedy and exaggerated gore.
     In the hospital morgue, a corpse awakens and frightens the coroner. While walking through a town centre at midnight, Annie is chased by the gobby Welsh girl, and is eventually invited back into the house so as not to arouse suspiscion. Aside from the smell (no doubt emphasised for Nina and George). Annie strikes up a connection with the girl, named Sasha, and a midnight trip to the morgue by her and Mitchell reveals that around two weeks ago, these "Type Four"s started appearing and the doctors started burning them alive. Through deduction, it's revealed that the Zombies were caused by Mitchell's escapades in Purgatory two weeks ago, essentially closing the door to the afterlife. Refusing to accept her death, Sasha visits her boyfriend (who rejects her) and eventually goes on a girls' night out with Annie and Nina, where she collapses. Brought back to the house, she finally loses consciousness and Sasha is able to properly "pass on".

Sasha, a "Type 4."

     Mitchell's storyline split off mid-episode, as he kept bumping into apparent "fan" Grahame, a relatively recently turned vampire. He starts coming round and chatting to Mitchell's friends, working at the hospital and following him around. Eventually Mitchell works it out; Grahame is one of the Box Tunnel 20 that Mitchell savaged in Series Two, and has come back to tell Mitchell (and his friends) about how he's going to become more famous, by carrying out a similar stunt. He eventually tracks him down on a train from Barry Island to Cardiff, and stakes him before he can kill anyone and spread the idea that Mitchell's actions are a good thing.
     As usual, George and Nina get relegated to the side, and that's not a bad thing considering their presence last week. Type Four's werewolf plot also concerned the events of Lia, in which the two werewolves had sex during a full moon. Apparently the pill doesn't work for werewolves. Nina's parental issues with her abusive mother make her want to get rid of it, but George wants a say in the matter. The other minor thread was Mitchell's acceptance of Annie's crush on him.
     The lighthearted tone of the first half hour was a much appreciated salve; an attitude Being Human holds ever less these days. The episode's shift in tone around the middle from that lightheartedness into something slightly darker and more serious is smooth but noticeable. The episode's complete ignorance towards last week's fiasco is also interesting, supporting my case that it was nothing more than a backdoor pilot. The undoubtable star of the show is Alexandra Roach, who manages to pull of incredibly subtle character development as Sasha accepts her death and finally realised what was missing in her life.

Grahame offers a hand in blackmail.

      Ultimately, Type Four was a massive improvement on last week, and on the rest of Series Three so far. It brought back a kind of nostaligic yearning for the days of Series One, where the show's main aim was comedy and the drama came extra. The characters were written perfectly and realistically, especially the eponymous character who stole the show without overshadowing anyone else.   


Becoming Human
Not a lot to say this week, other than it was far too short and took far too long to be released online. By the time the BBC Engineers had fixed the problem, I was past caring, and the episode itself was a disappointment. Its problem was simply its brevity - something easily remedied. Get with it, Beeb.

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Review: GHTTB: A2A 1.1 and 1.2

Ashes to Ashes, Series One, Episode One

Gene makes his entrance.

"It's a tough, screwed up world out there, but if you follow me you might just get through it."

Life On Mars was almost universally loved by the general public, and the public demand was still running high. The creators hadn't liked their two-year run, and so commissioned a sequel show with a definite three-year-run to compensate. Set in the Eighties and named after another Bowie song, Ashes to Ashes takes a very different look at the Bonanza, and such is obvious from this, the first episode.
     DI Alex Drake is the detective-psychologist responsible for covering the suicide of DCI Sam Tyler, whose apparent delusions about 1973 make him an interesting case. One day, while driving her young daughter Molly home from school, she is called out to investigate hostage-taker Arthur Layton, who has asked for her by name. Layton takes Molly hostage but then lets her go and disappears. After dropping Molly off with god-parent Evan, Drake is held hostage by Layton, who explains to someone on the phone that he knows how her parents died, back in 1981, and that he's going to tell her the truth. When Alex tries her psychoanalysis on him, Layton simply shoots her and she wakes up on  barge in 1981.
     Dressed as a prostitute and having woken up in the midst of what looks to be a sex/drugs party, Alex ends up being arrested as a witness. After some misunderstandings due to her dresssense, she eventually accidentally reveals that she is the team's new DI, brought in to replace Sam Tyler, who was finally "killed" in 1980, along with Annie, whose role in the team has been replaced by airheaded "Shaz". The team are trying to find the source of the drugs, the cheif suspect being David Markham (Adam James, who plays his stereotypical arsehole character).
     Alex is otherwise preoccupied; thinking she's in Life On Mars, she calls her fellow officers "constructs" and tries talking into phones. Convinced that Layton is the cause of her delusion, as Sam believed his father was the cause of his, she searches into his 1981 life to try and find a way to set him up. Everything turns up roses and Layton ends up being arrested in a quite frankly epic gun battle.
     Like the Test Card Girl in LoM, Alex is haunted by recurring spirits, in this case a ghostly Pierrot clown (like the one from the series' eponymous music video) and the explosion of the car containing Alex's parents. She also repeats her daughter's name a lot, which I know from experience will become very grating. (Much like PEH-TER!)

     In comparison to Mars' opener, A2A 1.1 conveys its ideas and setups with a lot more subtlty, as well as being simply more enjoyable - it's better written, is more colourful, and generally takes more time to laugh at its own sense of grandeur, like the 80s did. It doesn't have as much sheer mystery as the ambiguity of the beginning of the Bonanza, because we've seen (or believe we've seen) a case exactly like it with Sam. An exceedingly good start.

Ashes To Ashes, Series One, Episode Two

Oooh dear. After such a good start, Ashes returns with a rather unfocussed episode that has a good few ideas but ends up collapsing into a self-congratulating mess. In an ironic way, it suffers from faults that plague a lot of shows in the 80s itself.
     The central premise is simple enough; An Anarchist on the Isle of Dogs is planning to blow up several street parties celebrating the marriage of Charles and Diana. It's convaluted by: a dog blowing up; Alex chatting up and bonking a Thatcherite businessman, and Gene's intention to "stamp" Alex's behind with a Metropolitan Police stamp.
     Not a terrible hour by any rate, but not like the powerful and cohesive plotlines that the Bonanza usually throws at us.

Thanks.

Review: Lost 4.5: The Constant

Note: If you want to understand these reviews, I'd direct you to Lostpedia's Season Four portal. All of the images in my Lost reviews have been taken from Lostpedia, and the plot there goes into greater detail.

A dying Desmond calls his consant, Penny.

I enjoy Lost the most when it's presented as a primarily sci-fi based show with a few mystic elements. Sci-fi often channels the emotive, as well as being a little more coherant than "a wizard did it". The Constant is a Desmond-centric episode, so one knows (based on the character's track record with time-travel) that something funky is going to happen.
     A break from formula this week, as during the flight over to the freighter Desmond suddenly wakes up in a Scottish barracks in 1996, with no knowledge of the Island. Jumping back and forth between 1996 and 2004, the confused Desmond thinks he's in the former. It's revealed, once they get on the freighter, that this is a product of passing the invisible barrier between the Island and the outside world. Daniel Faraday, on the Island, explains to Desmond over the phone that he needs to find him in Oxford.
     On leave from the Army, Desmond meets the 1996 Faraday, who confirms his future self's theory and explains to Desmond that he's become unstuck in time; his consciousness is jumping back and forth, with no constant inbetween. A Constant is something notably similar in both time zones. Remembering heartbroken girlfriend Penny, he finds her and begs her to give him her number, on condition that he will only ring it in eight years. He skips back, and rings Penny from the freighter, who answers and reveals that she's been looking for Desmond for the past three years.

Desmond wakes up in 1996.

     This episode could have so-easily gone wrong, with an experimental format and a lot of sci-fi-babble concepts at play. But it didn't, and the roller-coaster ride of intrigue and emotion is only made more potent through the singular focus on Desmond. It was also a good hour for Michael Faraday, who despite acting like little more than Mr. Exposition does also provide some great irony in the discreapancies between his future and former selves.
     An episode so good, then, that it leaves very little to be said. The Constant hits the right buttons at the right time, with the right mix of elements and expert direction, as well as a beautiful score from Michael Giacchino. Lost at its best.


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Review: Misfits 1.5

Sally "seduces" Simon at his house.

If there's one character for whom we see the effects of character development, it's most certainly the perplexing and complicated Simon, the first character to display his abilities and, until Series Two, to properly control them. As one of the most interesting characters in the show, his episode gives us a similarly intelligent episode that not only deepens and muddy's his character, but also advances the plot.
     Simon, alone and depressed, is chirped up when suspicious Sally makes advances and inquiries into his limited social life. She takes him out to a drink, pretending to be his girlfriend to annoy old school bullies, and then he invites her back to his house, where she steals some of his tapes. Eventually, in the Community Centre at night, Simon finds out about what she's been doing and, angry and protective, he accidentally kills her. Both Simon's psychotic turn and Sally's persuasive fascade are very well acted and come off as quite chilling. Simon undergoes a personality change between Series One and Two, and in Series One he slowly heads towards psychotic madness, elements of which can be seen here.
     As if to relieve the mind of the horrors of the main plot, the two subplots took on a lighter theme. Curtis, having saved girlfriend Sam in last week's temporal tale, tries to break up with her but suffers from a Groundhog Day loop caused by his own guilt. He eventually breaks out of it using one of Nathan's lines from Spiderman. Nathan was busy himself, having become the victim of a child affected by the storm, and given the ability to make any man act like a father to it (not a very good power in the long run, one would think). Ultimately the former was a nifty cleanup operation and the latter was fairly unnecessary, but both added a light touch to an otherwise skin-crawling episode.

Nathan takes a baby hostage.

     Despite having a lot going on, the episode kept a fascinating pace that ran all of the subplots smoothly into one another, climaxing them off one-by-one and ending with the grand finale of Sally's untimely death. In some ways it's a better finale to this series than the one coming up. Join me next week, when I finish off my Misfits reviews with 1.6.

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Opinion: Waterloo Road 6.11

A Yob and a Dog.

 Waterloo Road, like its respectable colleagues Casualty and Holby City, is more of an American soap-like drama than any of its dramatic comrades, which by their nature makes formal review near-impossible. I only tend to watch these programs for the rare occasion that they do something good, and the rest of the time to snark at everything out of place.
     "Out of place" is a key term to describe the events of Wednesday's episode of the serialised drama, set in the titular School. The second half of Series Six, or the "second term", begins with something fully intended to shock the hearts and minds of good-natured, civilised people everywhere - seperate-gender education! "scare chord". As a subject and supporter of single-sex education, the episode at the start bemused me with its mad gender stereotyping, which soon turned ugly when the episode concluded on the notion that any group of boys left in a room together will cause the utmost pandemonium in minutes.
     That was the backdrop, but the main conflict came from two sides, appopriately gender opposed. The masculine threat was from stereotypical nothern dumbass Kyle Slack, whose complete lack of social skills leads him to bring his angry dog into the school. The character is, however, given a smigeon of sympathy, with his fondness for his canine friend and his overbearing, brutish mother. Such sympathy is not offered to our feminine conflict, Bex Fisher (a very out of place Tina O'Brien, who amazingly still stretches into a uniform), daughter of elderly headmistress Karen. Bex ran away two years ago and has just recently returned, worried about a stalker (hilariously named Hodge) and acting mysterious in an attempt to make us watch next week. She called the Rape card that led to Mr. Slack's rampage.

Because even Tina O'Brian has to pay the bills.

      Elsewhere, and the myriad of subplots boggle the mind. Troublemakers Finn (who seems to have had his character toned down a shade since he attempted to enter into a suicide pact in Series Five) and teacher's son Josh (implied to be gay, but not specifically since the BBC are a bit scared of that sort of thing) tried to get a dog to fight Mr. Slack's aforementioned rottweiler, while the latter was worried by the arrival of he who can only be known as Scary Pervert Guy, who seems fairly interested. Another strand, incredibly predictable and disturbing, is another Teacher/Student relationship, between enterprising Spanish teacher Francesca (Anglo-Indian actress Karen David) and equality-loving Jonah. Teacher/Student relationships are very common in this program, it seems - the climax of Term One of Series Six was the final revelation to Karen that Vice-Head Mr. Mead had bonked another one of her daughters, Jess.
     The episode went quickly from bemusing to offensive, with its subplots that demonise not only the poor and underprivelaged, but also managed to piss off the entire male gender. I know it's probably intended as satire (although I've given the show too much in that direction of thought in the past) but it still stinks of the reverse-sexism that the masses are soaking up at the moment. And yet. This show is addictive, not only because it presents a only-slightly-larger-than-life view of the school system, but is written best as a comedy.

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Josh: No Ordinary Family: Episode Four (recap) & Five (review)

EPISODE FOUR - NO ORDINARY VIGILANTE (RECAP)
A man whose son was murdered years ago, is out to deliver his own justice by shooting purse snatchers at a city park. Jim is then seen at the crime scene and is mistaken for the vigilante. Dr. Francis Chiles (Reggie Lee) becomes suspicious of Stephanie and Katie's behavior at the lab. JJ's mathematical abilities begin to increase and he uses them to join the football team. Daphne uses abilities to find out where a party is being held (from the Wikipedia page).

EPISODE FIVE - NO ORDINARY QUAKE (REVIEW)
JIM: After the mall that Jim and the rest of the Powells are shopping is victim to a strange earthquake, George thanks to his source in the police discovers it was man made. Supposedly it is a concussion grenade used by someone so that they have the chance to raid pharmacies across the city, stealing anti-epiletic drugs. It turns out that it is in fact a young girl, Rebecca Jessup, who is another super using her ability of shock waves so she can steal the drugs which he thinks can stop her condition. It is revealed she has been held prisoner by Dr Dayton many times before and her fate isn't shown after she is knocked out by Watcher. Jim and George have involvement with this storyline.

STEPHANIE: Stephanie is suspicous of JJ's strangely intelligent moments including when he saves a woman using his intellect in the mall. But, she is distracted elsewhere when Jim lies to her telling her a tape of him using his powers is in the police when in fact he wants her to get CCTV of the quake in the mall. Also, Steph employs Katie to crack a encrypted file they have found which has research on super-humans. She thinks this will help her understand the Powell family's problems with their powers.

JJ: After saving a woman from some wreckage in the mall and becoming a member of the football team, JJ is asked by his suspicous mother to be tested. He knows she thinks he has powers and he doesn't want her to know, so asks his friend to pee in the cup for him. So, while Katie tests the pee for traces of powers JJ absent-mindedly breaks the code for the files on her computer. Katie soon gets the truth out of JJ and she immediately tells Steph who passes it on to Jim. Also, JJ's friend didn't pee in the cup, his girlfriend did who turns out to be pregnant. At the end, JJ decides to quit the football team as using his abilities is cheating, and is knocked down when he tries to run for a try.

DAPHNE: Daphne is trying to get an after-school job on the other side of town when she sees both her English teacher and friend at a coffee shop. So, after using her mind reading abilities, she assumes the pair were sleeping together and are now over. She then accidentally humiliates her friend when she tells all to the principal. But it turns out that it was the friend's mum who was dating the English teacher and so again Daphne feels stupid.

Yes, this was yet again a brilliant episode which introduced a bit more humour like episode two but less action and drama. The brief involvment of the series story arc cheered me up slightly as it had been absent previously but it does need to be developed. Also, the story of JJ's friend's girlfriend being pregnant was unecessary and I was dissapointed Kay Panabaker's Daphne didn't have a bigger role. One episode she needs something of her own storyline instead of being an add-along to the rest of the character's plots. However, a strong, decent episode and I'm looking forward to next week's edition with anticipation - No Ordinary Visitor, when the grandparents arrive, how will the Powells cope?
Thanks, Josh.

Review: Being Human 3.2: Adam's Family

"You know what I feel? Hungry."

Brian Dooley, this episode's writer, has one previous Being Human credit; 1.4, where he created the idea of Vampire Porn. Similarly perverted concepts are present in this episode, which suffers from the typical issues that plague Being Human on the whole, but also brings along its own, as if the episode is a private plot-hole garden party. So far, this series has depicted the Welsh as a bunch of sexual deviants, something which both irks and offends me.
     The point of the episode was essentially as a back-door pilot for an online spin-off show (see below) starring the titular Adam, a 46-year-old Vampire stuck with the body and mentality of a horny 16-year-old. He's played by child star Craig Roberts; ironic, as his last role was as a "breather" in the three series of CBBC show Young Dracula. Needless to say that he works brilliantly with the material given to him, which puts his irritating character arc soley down to that very writing. It wasn't clever, it wasn't gritty - it was just a basic demonisation of the teenage stereotype.
     With George and Nina tied up with Adam, Mitchell and Annie were left to rather jarringly form UST and, for the former in particular, to brood and be frightened. Local vampire agent Richard tracks Mitchell down and passes on the message of the Vampire Elders, who are mighty pissed at what Mitchell's been doing. They want to send him on a slow boat to South America, which, judging by all the death-threats coming out of the television, he's pretty eager to jump upon. But then, of course, he's got his sudden relationship with Annie to consider.

A gorrilla is one thing. This is another entirely.

     Meanwhile, in hospital, Adam's 80-odd dad dies, leaving him without a food source. Having heard that Richard's family has a good food supply, they go to their stately home and discover the truth; the family feed on a leather-bound gimp who enjoys being fed upon. Leaving Adam to his happy devices, the two doubting werewolves return to save the boy from the ritual they're about to put him through - namely, killing the gimp and then having sex with Richard's wife Emma on the billiards table.* Adam chooses to leave, and is sent off on a train somewhere North.
     The main episode was, quite simply, a shambles. The Mitchell subplot was incredibly dull, and the main ridiculous. While it did manage to express some of the complexities of the teenage mind, it eventually fell back on the horrendous stereotype that this group is subject to. Kevin and Perry, eat your heart out. Even the message about parenting was skewered by the fact that Adam eventualy just grew up in a heartbeat. It wasn't captivating, or overtly interesting beyond the bile fascination of seeing how low the episode can sink. Other Pet Peeves this episode include the ever more annoying Lenora Crichlow and the inconsistancy of Mitchell's condition. Also, gimps? Doggers? Is this really what the show has fallen to?

The cast of Becoming Human.

     On a more positive note, the actual 12 minute pilot of Becoming Human was far better written than the actual episode. Adam was much more bearable, new love interest and werewolf Christa (Leila Mimmack) was portrayed as a realistically moody teenager, and the comic relief character, ghost Matt (Josh Brown), was by far more identifiable and funny than anything in the current series of its parent show.
      Being Human is beginning to feel bereft of life, an ironic situation considering its content but a valid comment none-the-less. There's none of the fun, none of the chirpy sitcom ideas that made the series watchable. The show and its characters are designed for a comedy drama, and the absense of the former is beginning to show.

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A Few Words: Red Dwarf Extras

Red Dwarf - Only The Good "Alternate" Ending


The originally filmed ending to Only The Good, this would have neatly left the series open for other incursions later on, and as such neatly explains Back To Earth in canon. It's not a good ending by any stretch, and it doesn't tie the series to a close, but what it does do is present a logical, funny end to Series Eight and it doesn't feature the fucking Grim Reaper.

The Red Dwarf Children in Need Special


Children in Need usually offers up some fun stuff, not all of it worth more than five minutes of your time. Here's a Youtube video of the Red Dwarf Children In Need episode from between Series VII and VIII, and is, in my opinion, several times funnier than either of those series combined.

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Review: GHTTB: LoM 2.7 and 2.8 (Finale)

The end grows nearer for the twisting tale of Sam Tyler.

Life On Mars, Series Two, Episode Seven
We begin our penultimate pair with an episode that gives Gene his just desserts as a character, putting him on the run and, as in 2.3, a more vulnerable character. However, more focus is given to Sam and his new colleague, acting DCI Frank Morgan.
     After witnessing the trial of crime-lord and briber Terry Haslam, Gene goes out on a drunken bender. Upon waking up in the morning, he rings Sam and tells him how he has woken up in Haslam's house, with his blood-soaked body lying opposite. Gene is arrested but escapes, as the evidence piles up against him. Sam eventually finds Gene, and together they work out the identity of their muderer - the man Terry Haslam was about to be convicted for assaulting.
     The episode often feels... empty, intangible. There isn't much to it; a basic run around with a few snarky remarks here or there. There's no tension, no doubt that Gene is 100% innocent all the way. In fact, it's more of an extended prequel to the finale.

Life On Mars, Series Two, Episode Eight (Finale)
"If you can feel, you're alive. If you don't feel, you're not."

Hour Sixteen, and the show needs a great finale of its two year journey, and for the journey of Sam Tyler. We knew this day would come. So, how does the episode tie up the loose ends left by the series? Well, to put it simply, very badly. Instead of putting all the pieces together to make a pretty picture, the episode prefers to carve the puzzle pieces into new shapes and then cry when they don't fit together any more.
     The main plot with the supporting cast had Gene lose all character development just for the sake of plot, putting his officers on the line in a risky sting operation featuring a train robbery. Sam was, as usual, averse to the idea, this time provoked by his newfound belief that Frank Morgan is in fact the surgeon operating on his brain. Working with Morgen, who tries to convince Sam that this is in fact 197 and that he went mad in the accident, Sam botches the sting and manage to wake up in the present. Worrying for his health, Sam sends off a psychologist's report to DI Alex Drake in London (Ashes to Ashes, here we come!) and then, upon realising that he can't feel his life, commits suicide. This somehow lets him arrive back in 1973, where he sorts out the robbers with a few gunshots and they all drive off into the sunset.
     The episode did absolutely eff all to bring the series to a hilt other than bringing the titular character back to the future, and it even reneged on that side of the bargain. It seems as if this episode was written some time back in Series One, because there is absoultely no character development present from previous episodes. Considering that Gene just got off a murder charge, is it really sane, even for him, to do something as stupid as here? No, it isn't. What a dissappointing end to an otherwise decent series.

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P.S. Come on, you know me better than that. The GHTTB returns next week, with Ashes to Ashes!