Date of airing: May 17, 1997 (CBS)
Nielsen ratings information: 13.40 million viewers, 8.8/17 in Households
So, there you have it, which is what Chuck said during the final voiceover of the season, and suddenly I was wondering if all of the voiceovers would be coherent if you were to splice them together and listen to them back-to-back, if that would come together in a narrative form. They would certainly be repetitive, because I’m pretty sure the quote “My friend Gary, who gets tomorrow’s newspaper today” or something in that type has been said at least five times, but still, maybe there was a purpose in all of these voiceovers, which went beyond putting exposition at the beginning and end of each episode, to make things easier and more understandable for the viewers and to make it obvious that EARLY EDITION isn’t just a series about a guy receiving tomorrow’s newspaper today, but can also be considered a show with specific messaging for the audience to figure out.
Anyway, this episode was okay. This being a stand-alone Saturday primetime episode from CBS, it was obvious that Jeffrey’s relationship with Marissa, and Gary’s repeated efforts to save Professor Dr. Price, would be connected and shared the same backstory, but there were still a fun few minutes when the plots were still separated from one another, and for a moment, I was happy that Marissa was given a lead story after 22 episodes of being the sidekick with barely anything to say. Yes, her romance wasn’t much of a meaningful story in this case, since it was a) a very generic romance, and b) was quickly killed off for the sake of turning Jeffrey into a murderous villain, but it is the first-ever story for Marissa, the first-ever point of view from her perspective when it comes to her disability. You could say that Marissa’s disability may not have changed the story in this episode at all – you could have removed her blindness, and Jeffrey would still be the villain. Although that would also mean the pretty cool reveal of the pictures of Gary on Jeffrey’s walls would have been missing if Marissa had not been blind.
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| Three friends hang out and have a chat with a cup of coffee. |
And let’s be honest for a quick second here: The writers weren’t particularly interested in depicting Marissa’s disability and making it a focus of the series. That is why she got her first lead story in the season finale, and it’s probably a result of the writers’ room not quite knowing how to treat her blindness in the narrative and how to make it believable, considering Shanesia Davis was not a blind person (but apparently people believed that she was, even after EARLY EDITION ended in 2000). Maybe the producers didn’t do enough research and interviewed actual blind people to know what to do with a blind character on a weekly TV series, which is why it took until the season finale for the audience to find out what Marissa’s home life is like, and how blind people prepare dinner, or simply just live a life. You normally don’t get to see that on TV very often.
After all, there must have been a reason for the writers to finally get into Marissa for a change, and that reason can’t just be because she hasn’t gotten a centric episode yet (while Chuck at least has gotten his romance with a “Mob Wife,” and maybe his adventures of being an involuntary midwife in “Baby,” and the countless of B stories that had him be an annoying prick every once in a while), or because she is black. Marissa happens to be a main character without having had a purpose in her existence for 22 episodes, and that simply can’t be the only reason she was given the spotlight in this hour (almost literally during the scene in the auditorium when Jeffrey turned on the projector). But while her story was generic and never scratched the surface of her character, it was great to see her branch out from being the voice of reason and morale, and instead, let her have her own problems. Granted, Marissa didn’t seem to have a lot of problems in her life – she had a great place she was living in, she could obviously cook, she cracked a couple of jokes, like recognizing the year of the wine bottle Jeffrey brought to the study date, and she had a couple of wonderful friends who supported her and helped her when needed. At least there was a sense of the viewers finally meeting Marissa for the first time, right before the show went on a summer hiatus, when the writers didn’t quite know yet whether EARLY EDITION was renewed for another season or not.
Meanwhile, Jeffrey’s story could have been a bit more logical. His backstory was pretty tiny, and while I can get that he wanted to avenge his dead brother, I was wondering why he did it through a bomb or poison, when he easily could have killed Dr. Price in her office late at night with a knife or something. He wouldn’t have had a clear alibi, but still, for his avenging mission, he went through quite a few obstacles tech-wise and chemistry-wise to get his plan executed. But then he fell in love with Marissa, probably, and all of a sudden it became a story about a guy who could have been mentally ill, or in the least, very confused. At first, Jeffrey was getting revenge, but then he was thinking about straight-up murdering Marissa in the auditorium? It doesn’t make sense to me, but it would make a lot of sense if the writers had recognized Jeffrey as a disturbed character who required some serious help. Now, if the episode had been a few minutes longer to get into Jeffrey’s story, even Dr. Price would have come to realize that her student needed help and everything would have been fine narrative-wise, but I assume either the editors cut something out that would have made sense out of this mess, or the writers didn’t bother to go deeper into all of it.
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| Marissa sees nothing but danger. |
But let’s not decry this episode. Tara Lipinski had a cameo appearance in it, continuing the small streak of real-life people making cameos in a series that wasn’t a particular ratings hit, but still found time to include well-known personalities into a tiny story point. Plus, this episode was here to give Marissa the lead, and for that alone (as well as the very successful moment of tension in Jeffrey’s apartment when the photos were revealed), the episode was worth it. The only thing to hope for now is that the writers felt the hunger and need to focus a lot more often on Marissa in the next season. It was time for her to be more than just a sidekick.
