Date of airing: May 9, 1998 (CBS)
Nielsen ratings information: 9.74 million viewers, 6.5/12 in Households
I take a hazarded guess and say that, according to the final scene, the cat (and the paper) really wanted to give Gary and Renee the evening off, so that the recipient of tomorrow's newspaper can smell the fresh scent of a private and romantic life for a change, especially after he got involved in a bit of a political and conspiratorial kerfuffle in this episode. The cat (and the paper) decided to reward Gary's hard work as he was protecting Renee from evil government agents and potential contracted assassins by allowing them to go see a movie and then have dinner later. This is all the payment these two lovebirds get, and after their movie and a dinner date, Renee will disappear from Gary's life, never to be heard of again, because EARLY EDITION is not that kind of show. Plus, I don't think that Lori Heuring, whom I only knew as Eloise Kurtz, alias Kate Jones, in a couple of early episodes of ALIAS, was good enough as an actor to be considered for a recurring role as a love interest in a proceduralized fantasy comedy-drama, which is why Gary will never have a girlfriend he can call "wife" after a couple of years.
The episode was quite alright, despite sporting the usual amount of absurdities that transform the series from family-friendly entertainment to something the writers wanted to look a bit more darker and violent. Consider me surprised that Renee and Gary weren't making out by the end of the episode, or having some naughty fun, judging by the fact that heroes of TV shows like these tend to end up with the woman guest star of the week, for the sake of giving the audience their weekly dose of romance. The premise of the hour was similar to James T. Kirk's adventures with the USS Enterprise, with Gary having turned into the real-life Chicago version of the space captain from the future. But no, Renee and Gary weren't making out, and there was basically just the touching of a hand at one point in the library scene – it's almost like Gary has recapitulated when it comes to relationships, knowing that they will go sideways because of the paper, knowing that the paper sometimes doesn't even want to give Gary the chance to live a happily-ever-after-type life. That begs the question of why the cat was watching over the two potential love birds at the end.
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| This is the closest Gary can get to a romantic life. |
Anyway, the... uhm, conspiracy story, which was actually the prologue to a fraud story, was not really that well-done. A couple of government agencies wanted to make some money out of some random futuristic research, so they show up with guns and badly groomed goons with noticeable jewelry in their ears, (what a convenient way for Renee to recognize her adversaries) to rob and potentially kill a woman, even though that would have most likely sent the real government agents on their tail after they found out that one of their researchers was murdered. The writers also needed to have Renee kick some butt and take names in the progress – granted, that was most needed anyway, since Gary is not the type who finds answers through violence (imagine for just a couple of moments that Jack Bauer gets tomorrow's newspaper today – how short would a season of TWENTY-FOUR be in that case?), but it is another sign of this season having gone a bit off the road with its conspiracy and violent stories. Maybe the writers wanted to get away from the family values of the show and be a little more exciting and action-packed, to keep some of the viewers who may go for that kind of genre on television, helping CBS to a ratings win in the process. I didn't even mind that Renee turned into an action hero, but it did go a little against the show's message, although this season already had way too many attempts at assassinations to silence the guest character of the week, so that Gary can save their lives repeatedly.
Still, there could have been a chance for the scribes to get a little hard on the science of the story, to explain what it actually was that Renee was working on and researching, and how it could be used to not just predict the weather, but the future in general. Who knows, maybe that idea of the episode was the general idea of an origins story for the paper's existence, or it was just an idea to realistically give the premise from MINORITY REPORT a reason to exist in real life. Through weather patterns and mathematics, you can easily predict the next few days and manipulate the random elements to make life better or your wallet thicker, but it seemed like the writers didn't even want to get too deep into that explanation, in fear of alienating the general audience, who would have understood nothing about the science and mathematics if the characters had started explaining it.
Sometimes, writers and producers simply need to have trust in their viewers in such cases. There is a reason ER went on to become a decade-and-a-half TV show, despite its medical jargon; there is a reason THE GOOD WIFE was a critics' darling, even if it was with the legal jargon almost all of the time; there is a reason MURPHY BROWN went on to become one of the longest-running CBS sitcoms, even though it was a liberal show; there was a reason that NUMB3RS aired for six seasons on CBS. Viewers are definitely ready to accept world views that they don't understand. But here is an episode of television neglecting the scientific explanation behind a science-fiction premise, because the writers didn't want to work too hard.
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| These are some proud parents. |
I loved the return of Lois and Bernie. She is still fantastic as Gary's mother, and sort of works as another moral guide in his life, similar to Marissa, while he continues to wish that he can spend some exciting hours with the paper and help as many people as possible, just so he can feel like a hero, essentially using the paper for his own good, similar to Chuck. As I said during Lois' previous appearance in the show, I don't mind at all having her here more often, and I could say that again after this episode, even if I found the behavior of Gary's parents extremely questionable, with the ways they needed to "lure" Gary out of his apartment and down the stairs to the kitchen of the bar. There really was no need for them to manipulate the front page of tomorrow's paper. By the way, how did they do that? Did they risk the bar going off in flames if Gary had not managed to get down in time?
