Tuesday, November 22, 2005

TV REVIEW: Surface, Episode # 9

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea! Kinda...

This week on NBC's Surface, Rich and Laura spent most of the time running out of air on the ocean floor in their make-shift submersible while outside, those giant sea critters laid tons of eggs. "You're looking at the new top of the food chain," Laura warned. Wow, that's a scary thought...

By the end of the show, this intrepid undersea duo had managed to get back to the surface (thanks to Jackson's emergency raft device...) but it really irritated me that Laura would immediately open the sub's hatch (into the open sea...) before at least taking the precaution of protecting some of their very important research. Sure, I know she was in desperate need of fresh air, but she could have taken a few seconds to protect her work. I mean, the government bad guy Lee has now found the "boneyard" where they were working, so he's got all those papers and disks. And now it looks like Laura's going to lose the video she shot and everything else on the submarine. I guess this plot development "happened" so the writers could see to it that the government can continue its plausible deniability for a while, but I think that a researcher and scientist as thorough as Laura would certainly have taken some steps to save her work before exposing it to the sea water.

Elsewhere, in Wilmington, North Carolina, Miles fears that little Nim is in trouble and has murdered a fisherman. Turns out instead that a bunch of the little critters are living in the shallows, near an appetizing electrical cable (which the creatures seem to feed on). And, because I'm a sucker for these people/pet relationships (see my Catnap posts!) I was touched by the reunion of Nim and Miles. I hated seeing fishermen kicking and hitting and otherwise abusing the wee beastie, and I appreciated Miles' discussion about knowing "how to talk to tigers," and the fact that he recognized his pet from the others. That's a very accurate touch. Pets may all look the same to non-owners, but owners know. There's a bond there. Even with electrical, sea-going lizard monsters. Very touching.

Otherwise last night's episode just didn't seem quite as exciting or interesting as the last few episodes. (Unlike last night's Prison Break, which was intense...). I hope Surface isn't sinking. It looks like next week we're going to get an update of the movie Lifeboat, with Laura and Rich sharing an inflatable raft during a storm, and sharks circling.

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