Freakylinks
"Subject: Edith Keeler Must Die"

Airdate: October 20, 2000

Remember that whole thing I said in the last review about it being okay to watch Freakylinks, about how well-written and scary it was, and how you should catch it while it lasts?

Well, um... never mind.

Granted, "Subject: Edith Keeler Must Die" wasn't a bad episode, per se -- were it a late-season X-Files, it would be a downright masterpiece -- but it was one that managed to represent all that is misguided and inept in genre today nonetheless. This was the predictable scare with a smile. This was neither freaky nor, alas, was it particularly linky. This was decaffeinated, fat-free Genre Lite, and don't let that cute picture of Ethan Embry on the packaging convince you of anything otherwise.

The episode begins with our heroes heading to New York City, where aspiring shrink Chloe is headed for some sort of psychiatric conference. She is followed by Derek, Jason and Lan, who are puzzled by a reel of footage that resembles an outtake from C.H.U.D.. Yes, it's that old New York stand-by -- creatures in the sewers. The well-organized, superbly lit New York City sewers, that is.

Boy, would I give anything to quit my job in crowded, dirty Manhattan and move to those sparsely-populated, tree-lined avenues that embody Derek Barnes' Big Apple. The one mysteriously devoid of skyscrapers and landmarks, where you can open manholes and climb right in without getting arrested, where cops are, in fact, friendly enough to help you on your sewer-searching missions. Of course, I would have the disadvantage of only being able to look at things very, very closely, as any panoramic perspective would have shown a more modern, spacious locale, one likely illuminated by shimmering rays of bright Los Angeles sunshine.

Okay, I know this sounds snobby, but they could have at least tried to make New York look like New York -- if The X-Files could transform Vancouver into a southwestern desert, Freakylinks could have at least thrown in a pretzel vendor or homeless crackhead or something. And I wouldn't harp so on this point if it didn't seem symptomatic of the series as a whole -- after last week's bravura episode, Freakylinks seems scared of being too smart, and the general dumbing-down of the series extends to this disregard for detail.

Not to mention recycled plotlines. As mentioned, Derek's mission leads him into New York's sewer system in search of terrible creatures, and while this story could have had a fun, 1950s sci-fi sort of appeal if handled properly, it falls flat due to poor writing and sloppy characterization. It's just cliché after cliché, each "lightened" enough to rid them of any possible creepiness or creativity -- the allegedly homeless people our team encounter in the sewer, for example, are a group of pseudo-cool Roswell rejects lily-white enough to make John Rocker proud, and the show's resolution is ham-handed enough to make Derek's entire trip to New York irrelevant.

In fact, the only thing really holding the series together is a deft, amusing performance by Ethan Embry as Derek Barnes, who, by the way, is fast becoming one of my favorite genre characters on television. Whatever the series' flaws -- and there are many -- Barnes/Embry is always appealing, and manages to carry the episode to the end. I wish I could say the same for the sorely underused Karim Prince as Jason and Lizette Carrion as Lan. While the character of Chloe is moderately well-drawn, Jason and Lan -- who, considering they work with Derek, should probably be more in the forefront -- get precious little airtime, and when they do, they're reduced to drab plot devices.

While I was pleased to see a genre series which didn't seem to come imbued with the casting approval of the Klan (Buffy, Roswell, etc), it seems odd that the show's two minority characters are the least developed. I would love to see a show that actually mirrored the world I live in, and the reduction of a stone-cold fox like Karim Prince to a Scrappy Doo-like tag-along isn't it. Both characters and actors show potential -- it's especially cool to see an intelligent, unconventional female character in genre TV again, as Lan seems to be in her tiny role -- but I doubt they will ever be used properly, as the show's fifteen minutes are ticking fast. Once again Freakylinks stands as a great series wasted.

-- Sarah Kendzior

Freakylinks airs at 9pm EST, Fridays on Fox.

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