Daniel Baldwin’s partner

Dr. Nathan Seward has invented a drug which, when inhaled, gives people the illusion that they are being visited by dead loved ones.  Elderly Mrs. Westbrook takes a snort and imagines her husband is there in the room with her.  He appears to her at the advanced age he was when he died; which suggests to me that men and women will use this drug very differently.  Seward peeks in and sees Mrs. Westbrook happily dancing, but there is no one in her arms; she is all alone.

A newspaper tells us that in the impossibly far-off year of 2014, the world’s population is just recovering from a great plague.  The headline credits the rebound to “The Code” which outlawed this drug.  The idea is that by banning the drug, people will “look forward, not back” but I don’t think Mrs. Westbrook was going to be popping out any more kids at age 69 anyway.  But then, who knows?  By 2014, people might be living to be 200 years old!  Sadly, the drug OD has left her as ancient and incoherent as Nancy Pelosi.

Detectives Stephanie Sawyer ^[1] and Dan Kagan ^[2] are on the case.  Dan is such a believer in The Code that he did not even use the drug after his young wife died.  He notices that there have been 4 overdoses of this drug tied to Meadow Pines Funeral Home, so he and Stephanie head over there.  They pose as brother and sister, and tell the owner that Mrs. Westbrook referred them.  He agrees to help Dan see his wife again.  Having a dead wife finally has a bright side as he can exploit Juliette’s death in their sting operation.

Daniel Baldwin’s late wife

Dan provides a scarf that belonged to Juliette (for them to harvest DNA), then is summoned to meet Seward in a graveyard at midnight.  Seward hands over a vial of the drug, called Ess, and warns Dan to just use “one drop”.   Dan only pretends to take a whiff (and how do you whiff one drop?) to see Juliette, as Stephanie monitors the sting from the car.  Then they inexplicably let Seward just leave.  What?  They had the inventor, the kingpin, alone, unguarded, on tape, with the drug in his hand!  And they let him go?

Dan dutifully seals the vial up in an evidence bag, puts it in his pocket, and takes it home.  He can’t resist taking a snort and it is clear why when we see his dead wife is Daphne Zuniga — hot-cha-cha!  Sadly, the drug wears off and she disappears like a $500 hooker at midnight.  Dan immediately hooks up with Seward for another batch.  Seward again warns him not to overdo it because “they have an agenda.”  He says the government is working to sanitize emotion and turn people into drones.

Well, it really becomes a slog from there.  The story, though melodramatic, had potential, but this was not the place for it.  A very dull score, a weak performance by Daniel Baldwin, and way more close-ups than were necessary just strangled the episode.

Daniel Baldwin’s apartment

However, it did perk me up a little when the G-men were shooting at Dan in the cemetery and the bullets made sparks as the hit the granite tombstones.  It’s laughable unless it’s, you know, accurate; like flint and steel?  I’m no metallurgist.

I was also amused at how the director missed an obvious shot that was needed as Seward was killed.  As the G-Men were closing in, he snorted from two vials containing the essences of his wife and sons (the sons apparently shared a vial).  Seward extended his arms which allowed a Christ-like death, but there should have been an insert showing his family in his arms briefly before he was blown away.  He wasn’t the bad guy; he deserved a moment of happiness.

Hulu is losing Outer Limits.  I’m trying to power through the rest of the season watching back-to-back episodes.  Outings like this will not make it easy.

To be fair, it is still better than The I-Land on Netflix.  I’m only 27 minutes into the first episode and it is dreadful.  It is, in an astounding number of ways, a complete rip off of Lost.  People find themselves on a mysterious beach, the characters love to keep secrets, one in particular clearly knows more than she is telling, the first shot is a person opening her eye, other shots are also exact lifts from Lost (especially a pan, and shots of women against the surf), two characters — the main chick (an Anna Lucia / Kate hybrid) and a jerk (Sawyer-lite) — find a waterfall, there is an early death in the water, and I just got to — no joke –a flashback.  This is just sad.

If it were well-done, I would love it regardless of its lack of originality.  Unfortunately, this is the bizarro-Lost where they do everything wrong that Lost got right.  The characters are diverse, but only racially.  Where is the old guy like Locke?  Where is the gravitationally challenged guy like Hurley?  Pregnant lady?  Asian people?  An Arab?  Southern accent?  English accent?  A freakin’ dog?  No, this group is young and perfect and I will not remember any of them tomorrow (actually, the women are distinguishable, but the men are fairly homogenous).

On top of that, the dialogue is merely functional, conveying nothing but words.  Too early to tell about the story arc.  Acting ranges from good to terrible.  The score is the usual bland TV noise, but it is almost unfair to compare it to Lost’s incredible music.  Occasionally I read about a Lost prequel or sequel.  This is why I hope it never gets made.

[UPDATE] Oh God, they’re having a debate whether to stay on the beach or move inland near the fresh water.

[UPDATE 2]  Great, they seem to have decided 39 is their version of 4-8-15-16-23-42.  The way they get to it is laughably subjective, though.  Kudos for the scene of them pacing it off — that was fun.  But their explanation completely contradicts the geometry of how they were actually distributed on the beach.  The star actually woke up far from the others — hey, just like Jack Shephard!  The guy who figured it out is a little twitchy, like Daniel Faraday.  Con: another rip-off.  Pro: an actual character trait!

[UPDATE 3] This is a trainwreck.  It’s 1 am but I had to start another episode.  I always thought Sawyer was not a fully developed character in the Lost pilot, or just poorly portrayed.  He quickly became a classic character, though, and it was a great performance.  His doppleganger here does not even rise to the level of pilot-Sawyer.

Other Stuff:

• [1] It’s the lovely Jessica Steen, not seen since way back in Season 3’s The Refuge.  Great to have Jessica back, her beauty and talent are always welcome!  Hey, I’ve loved your work since Earth 2!
• [2] Oh, Daniel Baldwin.
• Seward’s first name is Nathan on IMDb, but is given as Neil in the episode.