The third episode of NE's first season is not a favorite of mine. I think it suffers from the very-special-new-character syndrome. In my opinion, especially in a new show, there's little reason to mine the character of a never-again-discussed person, to the detriment of regulars who still need establishing. I mean, who the hell cares about Soapy Sanderson? I blame Jerry Stahl, who got a writing credit on this ep. Remember "Permanent Midnight"?
I just have some general gripes with this episode:
How does Ed not know what a documentary is?
"Soapy did not believe in artificial sweeteners" - eh, a little too precious.
The documentary device as a whole seems super-lazy to me, particularly because NE was just getting started.
Rob Morrow resembles both C. Thomas Howell and Jonathan Silverman in this episode.
Like episode 1-2, however, this one props up the soon-to-be familiar structure of: Maggie and Joel have a conflict. They are forced to spend time together. They become flirty, acknowledge mutual attraction. Joel says/does something to upset Maggie. She gets overly upset, lashes out. They grudgingly make up. This pattern occurs roughly 150 more times. Get used to it.
The interesting thing about their relationship is that it's dominated by two constants: Joel always assumes that Maggie is motivated by attraction. Maggie thinks she is always motivated by her principles. Who's right?
1 day ago
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