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The Dead Zone: Precipitate

Dr. Gibson: "I think you're about to have the most interesting month of your life."

Not every Dead Zone story has to be full of fate and horror and love triangle stuff; this one was played pretty much for laughs, all the way through. Yes, it was improbable, some of the funny was forced, and the resolution was too pat, but I laughed out loud several times and I enjoyed watching the way all of the blood donors and their stories came together.

Anthony Michael Hall did his usual excellent job playing all six of the blood donors: Oyster Eater, Lonely Guy, Bookstore Writer, Bike Messenger, Pregnant Woman, and Homeless Vet. He even did well with all of them interacting with each other via CGI, too, especially courting himself on the bench. My absolute favorite scene was Johnny telling Lonely Guy and Pregnant Woman how perfect they were for each other, and that their kid would have an allergy to strawberries.

The story was clever and well-written, it was far from boring, and the end, with the flowers and the coins and the bike, was satisfying. Bruce got some good screen time, too, after having very little to do for the past few weeks. I like Bruce a lot.

Bits:

— Johnny, with a pentagram on his forehead, on the cover of the faux National Enquirer, very funny. Here are some of the headlines on the "New World Weekly":
"Psychic Smith: Savior or False Prophet?"
"Toothless Vampire Raids Blood Bank"
"10 Ways to Make People Love You!"
"World Exclusive: J-Lo"
"Nostradamus Jr. Predicts Earth on Collision Course"
and my favorite,
"Giant Wasps the Size of Cows Take Over Local Sugar Refinery"

— The famous writer Bookstore Guy mentioned twice was Stephen King, who of course wrote The Dead Zone. Duh.

— I really loved the scene with Johnny, Bob, Shari, the biker, and the Aikido.

— It'll be interesting to see if Mort the vet shows up to sleep in the east wing.

Quotes:

Johnny, waking up in the hospital: "Tell me it's not 2009."

Johnny: "Oysters and oatmeal... not happening."

Deadpan female cop: "Cubicles... pregnant... whimsical giraffes... thanks for bringing this to our attention. We'll be sure to look into it."

Kid: "I see dead people."
Johnny: "Cool."

Johnny: "What's that, a Zen expression?"
Bruce: "Jewish Zen. Kosher karma. Didn't I tell you I signed up for a comparative religion class?"

Four out of four stars,

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

4 comments:

  1. The book that Johnny said he'd buy 10 copies of was the hardcover novelisation of Star Trek: Insurrection, written by showrunner Michael Piller.

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  2. Was this the first episode in which we see Johnny able to pause one of his visions and wander around in it? I found it confusing here, but he seems to do it all the time in subsequent episodes. Not sure how he developed the ability to do that, but it wasn't as jarring as his strange television induced vision a few episodes ago.

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  3. johnny slowing down his vision was great while he's great playing six different characters who are a pregnant woman a oyster eater a lonely guy a bookstore worker a bike rider and a homeless veteran. the kid was going to hit boy a car running in the street while johnny saved him but johnny was the one injured and had six different donors inside of him.

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  4. johnny was inside a store when three kids were looking at his magazine cover when the mother says they got to go. the boy runs outside with store when johnny jumps in front of the car hitting him. johnny goes to the hospital with bruce when dr. gibson says he's got six different lives inside of him and he's got some company for several weeks. johnny took mort the homeless vet to a doctor to get him checked out and spoke to jonah at the bookstore while bruce was trying to track down the oyster guy when johnny found bob and pregnant shari sitting outside when shari's big biker boyfriend attacked them.

    ReplyDelete

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