Date of airing: October 18, 1997 (CBS)
Nielsen ratings information: 13.76 million viewers, 8.7/16 in Households
This was something of a weird episode with a timely and good story that had an even weirder ending pushing for a happy end when it didn't deserve one. It was an episode that is not going make a whole lot of sense in hindsight, that would be impossible to happen in real life today, and would definitely get Jenny Sloane, also known as Lisa, into a whole lot of trouble in a couple of years when random people find out about the Jenny Sloane story and how she was involved in it. This woman was in front of cameras for most of the time, she was the main character in a newspaper column – there is no way that this would come back to haunt Lisa in the future, if she decides to make something of herself that doesn't resemble her past life as a petty criminal. Just have someone like Ronan Farrow work on the Jenny Sloane story 20 years later and realize that all of this was just a fraud to make some money.It's quite the dark story, one that EARLY EDITION didn't know how to handle, because a cancer-stricken child needed to be the star of the B story, and the morale boost of Jenny and Howard.
The ending was weird because Howard started his ... uhm, acceptance speech with the words that he is a fraud, which is when I thought he would come clean to the world of the Chicago press and then step back to live a quiet life as a fraudster. Yet he continued the lie, he sent Jenny Sloane off into the sunset, and then he resigned from his position at the Chicago Sun-Times (as if that little moment isn't going to wake up the journalistic instincts of some other truth-seeking reporters). I was confused as to how the writers thought the episode was supposed to end. Yes, Lisa should not have been thrown to the wolves with Howard's little lie, but Howard should also not have smelled the sweetness of retirement after his resignation, just because he decided to have his heart grow two sizes and end the Jenny Sloane story prematurely and with a happy end for his character and everyone else involved. Either the writers knew exactly how to end this episode, or they didn't after they realized halfway into the hour that they ran themselves into the corner after revealing Jenny Sloane to be a fake.
 |
| Sick people always find each other. |
If you set all of this deception aside though, this episode becomes another edition of TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL starring Gary Hobson, who gets tomorrow's newspaper today. He met a dying kid, and he decided to help that kid. Because the existence of the paper has turned him into a guardian angel of sorts, a man who walks into random strangers' lives and decides to help them with whatever trouble they are experiencing. On his way to helping a kid decide to continue chemotherapy, Gary also helped an aging columnist step away from the path of lies he has built to find his heart again, and he helped a young woman realize that the lie she was living has not been great to her lately, after she has enjoyed all the attention that the deceptive story has been giving to her. If Gary had produced a glowing orange halo above his head, this would have been an episode approved to the heavens by Roma Downey and her husband, and the writers would probably have made the decision to somehow connect both EARLY EDITION and TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL and have both shows be set in the same universe.
And the thing is, I kind of like EARLY EDITION like that. Yes, it takes away from the supernatural angle of the premise, and it does not give the characters time to develop on their own – Chuck needs to become less of an asshole, which would be a story that would not find time in a TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL-type show, and Marissa needs to become a more available character to Gary, in addition to becoming a character on her own, without needing to fall back to Gary every time she is on screen. But a show like EARLY EDITION is needed to find the human spirit that some of the viewers may have lost in their own lives (which would give this show a reason to exist today: Be a wholesome family-friendly show with a moral of the story every week, and you may catch an audience changing their behavior a little bit). It was the premise of this episode after all, as Jenny Sloane was created to bring heart and an uplifting presence of hope and strength to Chicago and to anyone who needs it. What a shame the writers didn't go into how Jenny Sloane was able to help more kids or sick people like Kevin. Lisa was thinking about staying in town and going through hospitals, to find patients to talk to and help them in any way she can, which might have been the beginnings of a new career as a great social worker. Hello, spin-off show, and yes, there needs to be a great social work drama on television, and one that isn't being interrupted by juvenile court cases – I'm looking at you, JUDGING AMY.
 |
| John Spencer in one of his meaner roles. |
Meanwhile, I would have loved if the episode had been a bit more emotional with Kevin's story. First of all, the kid and his mother weren't particularly good actors, when you look at his mother's exposition during the beginning of the episode, and Kevin's rather stoic “get out” to Gary, after he read Jenny's suicide note. Secondly, both Kevin and his mother seemed like plot devices to get the Jenny Sloane story going and have it be all about her, and I'm not sure that was a correct choice the writers made. Kevin's story could have been its own thing of emotional drama, his mother could have tried to convince her son to continue the chemotherapy, but there was absolutely nothing in that regard in this episode. Kevin became a side character in Jenny's story, and his mother was nothing more than an extra. This episode could have been a sad one, but thanks to the fraud storyline, it could never go there.
