Freakylinks
"Subject: Coelecanth This!"

Airdate: October 27, 2000

So, who really needs plot when you've got Ethan Embry and Karim Prince wearing muscle shirts, right?

Right?

Ugh.

Suffice it to say, there were several things to like about "Subject: Coelecanth This!", basically in the form of Ethan Embry's left arm, Ethan Embry's right arm, the very presence of Karim Prince... you see where this is going. Normally, I would deem such elements as rather distracting to the series' storyline. But normally, there is a storyline to be distracted from.

Yes, it's another episode of Freakylinks, the show featuring talented actors playing charming characters who go on the most boring paranormal missions ever. You'd think an episode revolving around a giant bird creature that uses a rural Tennessee town as its meal plan would do something besides merit my reluctant admiration for utilizing a cheesy mythos unexploited by John Shiban (in this case, the Pteranodon), but, alas, such was not the case. Freakylinks proved itself yet again to be a perfectly competent genre series. It follows a line of storytelling well-trod, in recent years, by The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It seems incapable of doing anything more, and as such, never comes close to rivaling either of those series in their formative years.

What baffles me about Freakylinks is that it has all these elements that, while not always effective, are genuinely unique to a prime-time series. The hand-held camerawork can be irritating, but it does serve to give a unusual perspective to their investigations (and wow, they held out four freakin' episodes before making a Blair Witch joke!) and the website is an ambitious project unto its own. The acting is very, very good, but the characters are unique to the genre world also -- our heroes have no superpowers, no status, no money, no lives. Remember when Mulder toiled in the basement of the FBI building? Remember Buffy before Willow became a fashion plate, back when the thought of Giles the unemployed librarian opening a magic store out of the blue might have been, oh, rather questionable? Freakylinks in many ways is the anti-X-Files/Buffy/Dark Angel, the unglamorous alternate world of schleppy wardrobes and conversations about computer modems. It's a world a little closer to the average genre fan, especially those who stay home on Friday night to watch.

So why does it go to such pains to rip off The X-Files? Why has it shunned its initial, intriguing mytharc -- what really happened to the brother of Derek, played by Embry -- to go hunt evil birds in the woods? Why will it have one really smart, funny scene -- Prince and Embry's trip to the funeral parlor, where the former is introduced as "Mr. Shaft" -- followed by numerous blah sequences of creature-hunting in the woods? You probably know the answer to that (read: Fox) but it's just kind of depressing nonetheless.

The thing is, I never really suspected I'd like Freakylinks -- I mean, it's Freakylinks -- but I'm honestly kind of enamored. (And, okay, Embry and Prince have more than a little to do with that.) When the series is good, it's very, very good, but the rest of the time...ugh. What a waste. This could have been the alternative to certain aging, waning shows that dominate the genre scene. Instead, it's just falling in line.

-- Sarah Kendzior

Freakylinks airs at 9pm EST/8pm MNT, Sundays on Fox.

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