Overall Rating: 4.5
This one clips along much better than previous entries despite the ordinary characters...but it is still just empty story-telling and bad messaging.
Plot Synopsis:
Reapers: Nick evidently has a price on his head after killing the queen bee in last week's episode and a reaper has come to claim the right of vengeance...which is interesting since they seemed to be at odds with each other last week (the bees and the reapers). There's some kind of territorial war going on (mafia style), however, because Mr. Revenge gets a tasty scythe lash to the ear courtesy of Nick's boss, who runs the PD on behalf of the forces of darkness, evidently. That's...interesting.
Bad Guy of the Week: The problem this week is a serial rapist and occasional killer who comes from a races of goat-like demons called blud-beards who possess a powerful pheromone that subdues and controls women with a single touch and seduces even from a distance. What's worse, this one is a breeder (calling card: chomping on rare toads) who gathers attractive women by the bushel and impregnates them...and then when he is cornered by authorities or his cover gets blown, he runs off to start over in a new place. He is not typically a killer, but he will kill when one of his victims tries to run. He keeps most of the girls helpless and caged with a combination of a hallucinogenic gas and imprisonment. Nick manages to hunt him down and catch him in the act twice, but he may escape in the end because the EMT working on him is female.
The Skinny:
Not only has this plot been done a billion times in science fiction...but this is a less convincing version than normal and is attached to character introspection even less than is common in other low-rated examples such as "Hathor" (SG1). I will repeat my common refrain for stories likes these...chemical love does NOT equal mind control, devotion does not come from chemistry and love and chemical attraction are not the same (and the former does not come from the latter). Period. The more I see this meme with helpless fools being led to the slaughter by a pheromone or other secretion, the more I do NOT like the idea of seeing it again. The little moment between Nick and his fiance is cute, for example, but completely wrong-headed. Not that such things should surprise me in this day and age. Hollywood has been seeking to reduce romantic love to chemicals and common interests for years rather than focusing on the spiritual world. But this stuff is just starting to hit critical mass for me and I'm going to get harder and harder on episodes that put that view forward in the future.
Otherwise, this is more of the same dull, character-free crap we've seen so far. Other than the somewhat amusing antics of our friendly blud-bod, none of the characters...NONE of them...are rich at all. By this point, we loved half the crew of the Firefly and hated the other half...and by this point, we were really starting to pull for the Slayerettes. Even TNG had a few likable characters by now and that wasn't exactly a great show in its first year. They'd better do some character work and soon, or they're writing their epitaph on this blog.
Writing: 5.5
Boring...uncreative...flat...blah.
Acting: 6.5
The performances are adequate, but dull.
Message: 1.5
This number will go down every time I see one of these ridiculous examinations of attraction from here forward...I'll start handing out negative numbers soon...and that's a promise.
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