Sam becomes a San Francisco TV news reporter, Dylan Powell in 1985, who has been receiving tips from a serial killer. His first murder scene, he meets a young woman named Tamlyn Matsuda who is trying to help the police as a psychic. She describes a vision of this murder, quite violent, and in going through mug books locates the person she thinks committed this murder, professing no knowledge about whether he was involved in the other murders.
Most of this episode, I'm sorry to say, details a growing love affair, that lasts 2 weeks, between Sam and Tamlyn. Early on, we see her seeming to realize that the 59-year-old reporter Dylan is not who she thinks he is-she even calls him "Sam" without him ever saying that name around her. She senses Al's presence as well. Sam is so taken with her he seems willing to stay there with her, and ignore the real Dylan in the waiting room in the future.
Late in the show, via Al, we finally get a lead on the location of the man Tamlyn fingered early on, and Sam goes to confront him, directing her to phone the police to meet him at this motel. Sam doesn't wait for the cops, but goes around behind the motel to locate this suspected serial killer on his own. He does so and holds him for the cops, but before they get there he assaults the man several times. The man insists he never killed anyone.
Ziggy tells Al that catching this guy didn't change anything-Tamlyn is still the 7th victim. Al and Sam figure the guy only killed one person, copying the real serial killer. Sam decides that keeping her away from Chinatown-where the history says she was killed-won't do the job. The best thing to do is confront the real killer by going to Chinatown. So Sam and Tamlyn, totally unarmed, go walking through Chinatown hoping to locate the real serial killer, with no police backup at all. There they meet up with Dylan's longtime cameraman, Ross, there to get the pictures that will win them awards.
Sam glimpses someone who looks to be hiding and leaves Tamlyn and Ross to hunt down that person, only to find a scared child. While he is away, Tamlyn gets a vision of Ross being the actual killer and cannot hide her panicked look from him, as he grabs her and takes her to the roof of a nearby building. Sam finally returns and with Al's help, locates the pair and is able to prevent Tamlyn's death, while learning why Ross did what he did. Basically, he and Dylan had been laid off by the station and by being on the scene of these murders-first ones there-he saved their jobs.
First criticism-it seems whenever Sam is hunting for a killer, we viewers know it will be someone shown a few times during the episode AND there is usually only one person to suspect. Here we had a cop only in a couple of early scenes, so he seemed to be out of it. Most of the show saw only Al and Sam, along with Tamlyn and Sam (Dylan's) cameraman partner. So it had to be obvious to everyone that he will turn out to be the killer.
Secondly-It's hard to believe that this longtime cameraman, laid off near retirement, who held a respected job his whole life would not just turn to a crime like burglary, but serial killing just to preserve his job. Really?
The way the dramatic parts were scripted, I cannot believe Sam would be so stupid as to twice go after a suspected serial killer alone, without any weapons or backup. Here, he has fallen in love with the young woman but leaves her behind when he does this, even though the big reason to be there is to keep her from being killed. Even if the cameraman had been a good guy, it doesn't seem at all right that he would leave her so far away from Sam's chance to protect her.
My fourth criticism is that such a long stretch of the show dealt with Sam falling in love with Tamlyn and their conversations about psychics and how their dreams somehow foretell the future and someday more people might understand this phenomena. Even ignoring the psychic topic, I just can't get excited watching Sam fall in love with someone knowing it won't last, that he will soon leap into another year in another city as another person and never have a lasting relationship with that person. Which is good, since we learned a while back, what Sam forgot, that in his life in the 1990s he has a loving wife. These facts make any "Sam falls in love" story totally boring to me.
Fifth is the unexplained question about the first man arrested, the one the psychic thought committed that one murder. Dylan was supposed to have shown up at the scene due to a phone call from the killer. But Ross was the one who did the phone calls to Dylan. If Ross did not commit that murder, who made the phone call that put the men at the scene?
Lastly, is the character's name-Dylan. He was said to be 59 in 1985. How many baby boys were given the first name of Dylan in 1926? It's a good 1980s name-but only for a youth or possibly a young man. What was the writer, Paul Brown, thinking?
I will add that I cannot recall a single thing that made me laugh-which is normally a key element in this series.
The sheer stupidity of the way Sam went after the killer as detailed above, combined with the long boring scenes showing the couple falling in love, a love with no chance of a future-make this the worst episode of this series so far. I'm going to give it a 2 only because there was some tension in the final scenes. Definitely one to skip.
Most of this episode, I'm sorry to say, details a growing love affair, that lasts 2 weeks, between Sam and Tamlyn. Early on, we see her seeming to realize that the 59-year-old reporter Dylan is not who she thinks he is-she even calls him "Sam" without him ever saying that name around her. She senses Al's presence as well. Sam is so taken with her he seems willing to stay there with her, and ignore the real Dylan in the waiting room in the future.
Late in the show, via Al, we finally get a lead on the location of the man Tamlyn fingered early on, and Sam goes to confront him, directing her to phone the police to meet him at this motel. Sam doesn't wait for the cops, but goes around behind the motel to locate this suspected serial killer on his own. He does so and holds him for the cops, but before they get there he assaults the man several times. The man insists he never killed anyone.
Ziggy tells Al that catching this guy didn't change anything-Tamlyn is still the 7th victim. Al and Sam figure the guy only killed one person, copying the real serial killer. Sam decides that keeping her away from Chinatown-where the history says she was killed-won't do the job. The best thing to do is confront the real killer by going to Chinatown. So Sam and Tamlyn, totally unarmed, go walking through Chinatown hoping to locate the real serial killer, with no police backup at all. There they meet up with Dylan's longtime cameraman, Ross, there to get the pictures that will win them awards.
Sam glimpses someone who looks to be hiding and leaves Tamlyn and Ross to hunt down that person, only to find a scared child. While he is away, Tamlyn gets a vision of Ross being the actual killer and cannot hide her panicked look from him, as he grabs her and takes her to the roof of a nearby building. Sam finally returns and with Al's help, locates the pair and is able to prevent Tamlyn's death, while learning why Ross did what he did. Basically, he and Dylan had been laid off by the station and by being on the scene of these murders-first ones there-he saved their jobs.
First criticism-it seems whenever Sam is hunting for a killer, we viewers know it will be someone shown a few times during the episode AND there is usually only one person to suspect. Here we had a cop only in a couple of early scenes, so he seemed to be out of it. Most of the show saw only Al and Sam, along with Tamlyn and Sam (Dylan's) cameraman partner. So it had to be obvious to everyone that he will turn out to be the killer.
Secondly-It's hard to believe that this longtime cameraman, laid off near retirement, who held a respected job his whole life would not just turn to a crime like burglary, but serial killing just to preserve his job. Really?
The way the dramatic parts were scripted, I cannot believe Sam would be so stupid as to twice go after a suspected serial killer alone, without any weapons or backup. Here, he has fallen in love with the young woman but leaves her behind when he does this, even though the big reason to be there is to keep her from being killed. Even if the cameraman had been a good guy, it doesn't seem at all right that he would leave her so far away from Sam's chance to protect her.
My fourth criticism is that such a long stretch of the show dealt with Sam falling in love with Tamlyn and their conversations about psychics and how their dreams somehow foretell the future and someday more people might understand this phenomena. Even ignoring the psychic topic, I just can't get excited watching Sam fall in love with someone knowing it won't last, that he will soon leap into another year in another city as another person and never have a lasting relationship with that person. Which is good, since we learned a while back, what Sam forgot, that in his life in the 1990s he has a loving wife. These facts make any "Sam falls in love" story totally boring to me.
Fifth is the unexplained question about the first man arrested, the one the psychic thought committed that one murder. Dylan was supposed to have shown up at the scene due to a phone call from the killer. But Ross was the one who did the phone calls to Dylan. If Ross did not commit that murder, who made the phone call that put the men at the scene?
Lastly, is the character's name-Dylan. He was said to be 59 in 1985. How many baby boys were given the first name of Dylan in 1926? It's a good 1980s name-but only for a youth or possibly a young man. What was the writer, Paul Brown, thinking?
I will add that I cannot recall a single thing that made me laugh-which is normally a key element in this series.
The sheer stupidity of the way Sam went after the killer as detailed above, combined with the long boring scenes showing the couple falling in love, a love with no chance of a future-make this the worst episode of this series so far. I'm going to give it a 2 only because there was some tension in the final scenes. Definitely one to skip.