Tara is visiting her grandmother in Silver Sunset nursing home.  Sadly, this week Grandma no longer remembers her.  Dr. Adler tells her that Alzheimer’s is cruel that way.  After Tara leaves, Grandma goes down a long tunnel towards a bright light.  She’s not dying; orderlies are just pushing her on a gurney down a long hall to a well-lit lab.  She is put into one of hundreds of coffin-like berths, and gas knocks her out.  In the mean time, Grandma’s room is quickly stripped and a different patient’s pictures are hung on the wall.

At the very beginning, I expected the worst because I don’t think I’ll remember Tara in a week either; she’s just not very good. ^[1]  However, she is not a major character.  The combination of a great location that extended into a huge matte shot was awesome.  The efficient modular switching out of the geezers was intriguing.  It would have been a good scene in an X-Files episode; it would have been the best scene in an X-Files movie.  I haven’t been roped into an OL episode this quickly in quite a while.

The Dell family is gathered ’round for Grampa Joe’s — uh-oh, I see where this is going — birthday.  He is a pretty spry old cat who is jamming on some blues guitar with his grandson Ronnie.  Ronnie’s father Hank is not pleased that he is more interested in following in Joe’s footsteps than doing well in school.

He might be right.  Ronnie spends the next day busking, then playing outside for a crowd.  He inexplicably returns home during school hours and finds Hank helping Joe pack up his possessions.  He is moving to Silver Sunset.  They get Joe moved into the home.  All seems well, but Dr. Adler ominously tells Ronnie that he must call before he visits.

The next week when Ronnie visits Joe, he isn’t quite right.   He is flashing back to dreams he’s having, and can’t remember a song he sang at his birthday party.  Ronnie meets Tara there and she is seeing the same behavior from her grandma.

The next day, as Ronnie is playing on the street again, he sees a dude singing the song his grandfather wrote for his birthday party.  Kudos to OL for having this be a dweeby white guy in a suit and tie.  As he gyrates around and scowls trying to be an authentic blues singer, it is immediately clear what is going on at Silver Sunset.

Ronnie also sees a change in his father.  He has quit his job and says he wants to go into business for himself.  To this end, he has bought a computer which prompts a couple of bizarre responses.  Ronnie and his mother both question whether Hank can use it.  This seems like a sober, responsible guy who has provided a fine home for his family.  Why do they suddenly think he’s an idiot?  Then his wife reacts like it was a crazy purchase, like she has no idea what one costs, or if it will put someone’s eye out.  This is made even stranger by the fact that we saw a computer in Ronnie’s bedroom earlier.  This isn’t Gilligan buying a UNIVAC.

On the other hand, he did quit his job to “go into business.”  That’s not much of a business plan.  It’s like majoring in college.

But that is just a little hiccup.  The episode lived up to its early promise with some good ideas and great performances.

Other Stuff:

• [1] Sadly, the actress died at age 32.  I am clearly wrong about her as she packed a huge career into that brief life.
• Dang, I watched some Outer Limitseses early because Hulu said they were expiring.  Yet they are still here. Damn you, Hulu!

Well, you can’t please everyone.  The 2 Reviews at IMDb:

1. Definitely Worth Watching, a Low Rated Gem
2. The Usual High School Junk

I kinda get both of them except for the first one.  Kevin is constantly shoved into the background by his parents, and into a locker by his classmates.  His father, especially, is clearly more proud of his older brother Josh.  At least his dog likes him; when he needs to shit, anyway.

Huge props for the huge prop.

While out one day, they see a fiery object streak through the atmosphere and land in the woods.  Kevin finds the object, a wrecked spacecraft ^[1], and climbs inside.  Kevin finds an injured man inside.  He is revealed as a monstrous ogre as when Kevin isn’t looking — he picks his nose; also morphs briefly into a hideous alien and back.

Kevin stuffs some suspiciously puke-green, flesh-colored material into the man’s wound.  The keeper here is the man tilts his head back trying not to howl in pain.  As we see into his gaping maw, it is impressive that the alien has accurately assumed the form of a human right down to the cavities in his teeth.  Or else this actor has never heard of a toothbrush.  Seriously, this guy has lead slugs in just about every tooth.

The next day, after being bullied at school as usual, Kevin goes back to see the man.  After he guides Kevin through an operation to seal his wound, he gives him a patch that gives him super strength.  Although, since it is applied to the back of the hand, I think the monkey should go unspanked tonight.

Of course, the next bully that taunts him gets a concussion.  The episode is a conundrum.  A single guy wrote the teleplay which has some interesting dialogue.  But the story, which is mostly by-the-numbers, is credited to 3 guys.  I don’t see a lot of originality or creativity here.  What was the point of three contributors?  The one guy seemed to be on the J-O-B.

It’s not bad.  It just feels familiar.  Kevin is well-cast, maybe too well-cast as the proto-typical nerd.  It is inevitable that the alien will play on Kevin’s desire of an approving father figure.

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.

It’s too bad about Jacob Hardy.  I was just starting to like him for his willingness to speak truth to power . . . ful stench of modern art.^[3]  Sadly we do not get to see the referenced work “Problem Stain 11” before a meteor streaks through the atmosphere and shoots a lugie into Jacob’s melon.  He falls to the ground with blood pouring out of the wound, creating both a bigger problem and a bigger stain.

He is taken to the morgue and we get a good look at that wound.  There is no exit, so Dr. Ian Michaels reaches in and pulls out a metal projectile the size of his thumb if he had a larger weiner.  A tentacle pops out of the hole and flails about before retreating back into Jacob’s noggin.  Even more shocking, Jacob gets up and walks out of the morgue.

That night, Ian dutifully goes to visit his wife Daria who is in the hospital.  She expresses no shock or surprise at her husband’s story, but that might just be the coma.

Jacob’s girlfriend is surprised when he walks in the front door.  He seems changed, cold and distant.  Within seconds, he packs some clothes and says, “I have to go away.”  Wait, did they delete a sex scene?  He makes her promise not to reveal his plans which he didn’t reveal to her, then he leaves.

He meets up with 2 other people who had similar experiences with meteor tentacles in their heads.  Whatever it is that they are going to do, it is agreed they have 6 days and 10 hours to do it. ^[1]  It is important because Jacob says, “Everything depends on us.”

Meanwhile, Dr. Michaels has discovered online that in addition to Jacob, Curtis Sawyer and Kelly Risely were apparently killed by the meteor that night, then got better.  Dr. Michaels somehow thinks their recoveries might hold the solution for bringing Daria out of her coma.

Jacob funds the team with $500,000 in 2 days of day-trading with a Clintonesque level of success.  Kelly bones up on metallurgy at the library, and Curtis gets a consulting gig at a tech firm.  They use these resources and one of the slugs in their head to create a large device.  They test it out on a cat, zapping it out of existence.

Next they round up patients both old and young who don’t have much time to live, and take them to the device.  Daria is among the patients.  There is a good reason for their actions that boil down to “Life for life.”

Interesting justification for their actions, but a pretty average episode with pretty average performances.

Other Stuff:

• [1] We have the standard twerp who is compelled to point out it is really 6 days, 9 hours and 40 minutes.  That’s OK here, but it bugs me when a character says something will happen in 6.2 seconds.  Is that from when they start speaking, or from when they say “6.2”‘, or from the end of the sentence?  I’m lookin’ at you, Star Trek!  But not on CBS All Access.^[2]
• [2] What f***ing idiots are encouraging CBS by subscribing?  Just say NO, people, and it will be free.  You know, like NetFlix, Amazon, HBO or Hulu.
• [3] Honestly, this sentence seemed like a good idea last night.