Date of airing: April 25, 1998 (CBS)
Nielsen ratings information: 11.41 million viewers, 7.3/14 in Households
I am a firm believer that there has to be a hostage episode in every television show of the 1990s. Ever since I watched ONCE AND AGAIN and there was a hostage episode in it, this is all I can think of. A show, which is a relationship family drama, and therefore is not suited for a hostage episode, decided to go for a hostage episode and deliver a wholly different episode. EARLY EDITION is a bit more suited for a hostage situation, since it has been dealing with criminals and violent crimes a couple of times now (the Chicago mob should know Gary by name by now) and this episode wasn't the first time Gary was looking into the barrel of a gun. That it took the show almost two seasons to get to that point and have Gary be a proper hostage (one can argue if he was already one during the climax of "The Wall, Part 2") almost seems like a miracle, although I also think that the writers hesitated to write such an episode after the series was established as a family-friendly show – something EARLY EDITION has sometimes not been this season.
This hour was more of a hostage thriller though – one that surprisingly worked, despite the minimalist story. There wasn't anything major about John Hernandez as a character, and there was absolutely nothing about Rachel Stone as a character either, even if one developed a backstory of how to bring a guy back, and the other had an argument with her daughter about a tattoo on the butt. By the way, can we talk about how weird it is for a t(w)een wanting to have a tattoo on her butt? Who's going to see that tattoo at her age when she shouldn't even be versed in sexual education? What is she up to during school hours when she is asking for a tattoo on her butt, and how many 13-year-old boys need to be screened by her parents after she asked for a tattoo on her butt? Who does she think the tattoo on her butt is for, because she obviously won't be looking at it very much?
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| Chuck is where he belongs in this episode: Mostly out of it, with its performer behind the camera. |
So, Chuck went through a bit of a rough patch after helping Gary, eh? It could almost be a story that convinces him to never help Gary again, especially when nutcases like Hernandez are involved. I would have hoped though that Chuck's surgery would have uncovered something else about him, which would have otherwise been uncovered. Like the aneurysm the doctor was talking about – maybe it was in Chuck's brain all this time, but for some freakish reason, it didn't kill him when Hernandez hit his head, or maybe Chuck could have been sick in another way, which was only discovered because he happened to have emergency surgery. Something that could have created a B plot for Chuck that would have been carried over to another episode, for a bit of a story that gives me the chance to like the character a bit more and not see in him this annoying piece that only wants the paper to become filthy rich.
I did however like that Fisher Stevens took the opportunity to take a seat in the director's chair for this episode – maybe he is better at making stuff than being in stuff, but for me to have a real opinion about that, I would have to watch more that has him in it or behind the camera. It's a fact though that this episode was finely directed by him, possibly made easier due to the straightforward storytelling and the single setting of Rachel Stone's house for most of the second half of the episode.
At least Gary was in a really sticky situation this time around, almost having to talk himself out of getting killed by a madman. Once more, the person in charge didn't listen to any of his words (Rachel just arming herself and not doing anything else to protect herself after getting quite a credible threat on her life), and once more, Gary has to do double the work to save a life and move on to the next day to save another life. But at least this time, someone actually knew what was going to happen after Gary showed up. It was quite refreshing to have retired Detective Crumb (but not really retired, is he?) in this episode and let him have faith in Gary, which turned out to be the thing that brought fate back into the spotlight during this hour. Without a retired cop having run the hostage negotiation, the hostage situation itself would not have gone so smoothly, as Crumb knew that Gary can work this from the inside and the cops waiting outside don't need to have itchy triggerfingers. Maybe Crumb should accompany Gary on his days running around Chicago, and people will start believing Gary when he says that something bad is about to happen.
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| It's time to relocate this hostage situation on the road. |
Meanwhile, I do have qualms with the climax of the episode. Gary walking away from Hernandez to help the trapped kid was good and fine, but the train conductor was pretty stupid. You could see him through the front window, having a view of what was transpiring on the train tracks in front of him, yet he was doing absolutely nothing to stop the train from rolling over two kids and an adult. It reminded me of that one scene in 1994's SPEED, which had Jack in trouble under the bus, hanging by a thread, and you could see the two people standing on the car driving in front of the bus, doing absolutely nothing to help their colleague who just tried to diffuse a bomb. It's one of those inconsistencies in film and television I truly despise. It would not have been this difficult for the train conductor to quickly hit the brakes – yes, it takes some time and distance for a train to come to a full stop, and it would still have threatened the kids, but the train was already driving extremely slow, so it would have come to a stop quite quickly. It's a simple way to make the story more realistic, but it wasn't a choice the producers or the director made for this episode. Instead, the choice was all about Hernandez stepping in, who suddenly cared about someone else's life, and then ended his own. Huh? Did that really happen just now?
