"Sheena" A Rite of Passage (TV Episode 2000) Poster

(TV Series)

(2000)

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6/10
When monkey turned to man
unbrokenmetal24 March 2014
Sheena's birthday party is rudely interrupted by a huge gray gorilla who attempts to kill Sheena's teacher Kali (Margo Moorer). "Something is very wrong", Sheena realizes. Kali has concealed from her that her former tribesmen were transformed years ago into animals... and stayed like that, so Kali is the last one of the tribe who kept human appearance. Sheena and Cutter follow Kali into the jungle, where they meet the gray gorilla and want to find out why he became a hateful rogue gorilla who made other animals attack villages. But when he turns back into his human form, things are getting worse...

Strange story, an attempt to take a step into creature horror with poor results. On the other hand, the character of Kali is deepened by a remarkable background story.
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4/10
Seems promising, falls flat
skinnybert27 October 2020
After an unconvincing start, we find an episode with an interesting focus on Kali (for a change). As scenes alternate between her drama and Sheena/Cutter wondering what's going on, a strange feeling settles over the viewer: boredom, as we realize there really isn't much going on.

The fault is in the writing -- this episode pulls explanations and backstory out of the air, trying to build tension with out-of-nowhere plot turns, and reducing all conversation to stale TV phrases. Too bad: Margo Moorer finally gets something interesting to do, and it feels like one of those episodes you get from shows that are past their sell-by date.

Reasons to watch (at least the first half):

  • the "Rogue" status explained here is referred to in subsequent episodes (though it's arguably better not knowing)
  • Moorer's unusually central role & character backstory
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