User Reviews

In this episode, Justin's little pet is repeatedly called a gerbil. He even corrects another student who calls it a hamster. It IS a hamster!

"Huh?" That was my reaction to this episode and I'm betting I'm not alone. I see that it's been rated better than the preceding couple of episodes, but there was potential for an unforgettable episode and they wasted it. To leave at least some sense of enjoyment for people who may yet watch this episode, I'm leaving spoilers out. The main faults can be pointed out without them anyway.

So, we have a return of a recurring character, a great theme for the subject of the week and a *major* development in the season's main arc plot. But. For some inexplicable reason, the whole is less than the sum of its components. It's the way pretty much everything except the script and cinematography are so... un-involving. The actors' performances are flat - except for Jennifer Love Hewitt's, because, you know... Ah, I had to liven up this review somehow. The direction is uninspired. Worst of all, the music, the most important factor in creating overall mood and portraying the characters feelings, doesn't do its job. Just to be sure, I checked the credits, and what do you know - Mark Snow is *only* credited as composer of the theme music. Then again, while his work in the early seasons of The X Files (There. Is. No. Hyphen!) was pitch-perfect, by the last seasons his music had become an unintentional parody of itself, so maybe his full involvement here would not have helped.

Anyway, this is supposed to be a *major* episode, but those should *feel* epic and this just does not. It's like your average episode, which actually makes it worse than an average episode, because of the disappointment. Still, the poor execution is unable to ruin the great story that is the script, and the episode *does* look good. Even though there are jump scares that seem like they were stolen from a generic J-Horror movie and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Overall, I give this 6/10.