The Others
"Unnamed"

Airdate: February 12, 2000

Satori asks Marian to help her with a three year old investigation. Lately, both the practicing medium and the mother of Adrien Munoz, a missing boy, have begun to feel his presence very strongly. Warren then comes to Marian's aid when he teaches her his method for following the signs all around her. Unfortunately they lead her and Mark into terrible danger and Marian must confront the power of The Unnamed.

Warren teaches Marian how to "follow the signs".

While my favorite part of the pilot -- the gorgeous lighting -- was toned down a bit, this episode showed a lot of promise right up until almost the very end. The case seemed to be handed off to Marian quite gracefully and the manner in which almost all of the other... er... Others pitched in to help didn't feel forced. It's downfall however came in the resolution, with the ending feeling abrupt and tacked on.

Despite Satori's initial cattiness in regards to Mark's obvious admiration for Marian's talents, it was a pleasure to see them work together. It seems that when Mark isn't around to distract them they make a pretty good team. Mark and Marian are less interesting as a dynamic duo, but not without all hope I suppose.

The best pairing however came however as we witnessed the jarring juxtaposition of Marian's two worlds which came in the form of Warren butting into a conversation she was having with some of her fellow college students. While Warren's world consists entirely of The Others, we see that Marian isn't so sure that she is ready for that sort of focused existence.

And speaking of Warren, he is still the most engaging member of The Others. His quirkiness is a little too out there to be strictly endearing, but his single minded devotion to following the signs is entertaining to say the least.

The Force is strong with this one...

And while there was all this nice togetherness amongst The Others, it still couldn't make up for the finale. Okay, so it wasn't all bad, but it really fell flat after the pretty decent setup.

While she was understandably frightened in the presence of a man who cruelly murdered two innocent children, Marian managed to show some spine by remaining in control enough to try to protect little Adrien. I suspect however that her predicament and inability to escape might have worked better had the man's powers of persuasion been explored more fully than in the last five minutes or so of the episode. And despite Marian's neophyte status in understanding her powers, you would expect her to at least attempt to use them to protect herself or see through his trickery so that she could escape.

I suppose my biggest problem was not seeing her fight the man on his own terms. She used logic which, while a powerful tool against the sound of mind, isn't all that effective when used against the insane. Elmer needs to teach her some of his Obi-Wan tricks and pronto.

Although shown out of order, this second episode of the fledgling series doesn't seem to spark too many discordant notes when it comes to continuity. Whether that remains the case is anyone's guess.

-- Linda M. Najera

The Others airs at 10pm EST, Saturdays on NBC.

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