Date of airing: April 19, 1997 (CBS)
Nielsen ratings information: 12.07 million viewers, 8.2/16 in Households
Even the writers of EARLY EDITION figured they could overlap a few themes in certain episodes. The previous hour had me thinking about how the recipients of tomorrow’s newspaper were never able to live a social life, that the paper will always get in the way of their personal relationships, and that they will never have long-lasting romances, because too many lives need to be saved to nurture a romance on the side. Lucius Snow and Eunice met in Rome and had the greatest love story in only a week. But the paper hindered them to become the love of each other’s lives. The same kind of thing happened in this episode with Gary and Emma, although I don’t believe for a single second that they were the greatest love for each other, let alone will Emma remember Gary 30 years from now when she is talking to her grandchildren about the one who “got away.”
Emma was talking about Marco when it became necessary for her story, and Gary behaved like he wasn’t the slightest interested in Emma because it was of importance to his story. If he had been madly and deeply in love with Emma (and let’s be honest, the acting capabilities of both Kyle Chandler and Adrienne Shelly were not that great to make me believe that their romance was destined to become eternal), he would have taken her along as he was saving the day for some Chicago residents. He would have told her much sooner than he planned. He would have wanted to make this relationship work, which means he would have shared his deepest and most insane secrets about his life. And it’s not like people will react in sheer disbelief about the paper. After all, the people who know about the paper immediately believed and weren’t talking about how science-fiction-y all of this is. In fact, don’t even tell her about the paper, instead just have her see you help all these people, and end the day with a “This is my job, I am a guardian angel” kind of line. It would have been better than seeing Gary being anyone but himself, getting into a suit and tie, and having a date in a fancy restaurant, or at the opera. Gary is not that sort of guy.
 |
| Where does a woman of the 1990s put that huge phone in her purse? |
Adrienne Shelley was wonderful though, and it’s making me sad that she had to leave this plane of existence when her career was about to blast off as she was writing and directing her heart out with WAITRESS. She and the character she was portraying were women I could fall in love with myself, although the episode showed me that I’m like Gary, and that the two rather weird and complex personalities don’t fit together. In addition, Emma felt like she was the constructed character needed for Gary at this point in life, and for the writers as well, just to get the message across that Gary will never have a functional romance, and that the writers will never get into this kind of storytelling again. Or at least not the way they did in this episode, with Gary hopping into expensive-looking clothes, and making dates in fancy restaurants and operas. This could not have been a more alienating version of Gary Hobson.
The romance between Gary and Emma was indeed a little weird at times. Her head got unstuck as soon as her life was saved by him, and he for some reason believed that he can actually manipulate himself into a life around the paper, not believing that the paper plays its own little games with Gary, and expected the man to not have a social life and instead help people. In addition, the writers helped themselves along nicely by making sure this is a love story for 45 minutes only – in which the couple has a relationship for weeks and weeks, and in which Gary thinks about moving forward, because this is not just a date-type thing anymore, it’s a long-lasting romance that brought thoughts of marriage. But it didn’t come over as such kind of romance, thanks to the fact this is just a TV show, and Emma was a one-episode-only girl for the central character (wouldn’t she have deserved to be in two, maybe three episodes, and make this a real story arc for Gary?), but at least for what it was in this episode, it was interesting. I mean, Gary interrupting his own date to save a couple of lives three times? This could have been a comedic joke, as Gary returns to the cheap and crappy diner with more and more combat wounds each time. But for some reason, the writers took this as a more serious attempt at storytelling, begging the question of why. Not to mention that Emma didn’t have much of a character arc going for herself, if you exclude her backstory with Marco. As if she was written into the series for the sake of giving Gary a romance and another fateful decision to make.
 |
| For a while, Gary was happy. |
Anyway, this episode needed at least a second part. There was no feeling or emotion in Gary sending Emma to her destiny, even though his heart was supposed to be broken, and I even felt that Marissa lost the sense of being Gary’s voice of reason, telling him to change this particular headline and make himself happy for a change. Wouldn’t Marissa have advanced the thought of putting Emma back where she belonged in the sense of life and fate? Hasn’t she told him all the time that there is a reason for the paper to send Gary to various places, helping various people? Isn’t that the moral of the story, and isn’t Marissa the one who puts it into words for the viewers to recognize it as the plot device?
