Date of airing: March 25, 2000 (CBS)
Nielsen ratings information: 9.69 million viewers, 6.0/11 in Households, 3.3/10 with Adults 18-49
written by: Eric Tuchman
directed by: Ian Barry
This episode was good enough, though I am a little surprised it exists in the first place. EARLY EDITION has all been about family entertainment and stuff, and while the show went dark and dramatic sometimes, even absurd by depicting terrorist activities and mafia hits and bombings, it never depicted any unnecessary moments of violence (except for the two former lovers shooting each other in the episode "Rose"). However, this episode had such a moment of unnecessary violence. I watched a copy of this episode that aired on the Hallmark Channel, and for this episode, they had to cut out two moments of violence: the guy whose car was getting stolen getting shot by Raymond, and Miguel getting clocked over the head by Raymond. That means this episode had too much violence for the Saturday evening family entertainment slot CBS had available for EARLY EDITION, and the series went beyond that to become a little more action-oriented and family-unfriendly. It makes me wonder whether none of the executive branch over at CBS was in contact with the writers and producers during this portion of the show's season, or if CBS was about to give up on Saturday nights anyway, considering reality television was on the rise, and scripted shows became more expensive to produce. That could also mean EARLY EDITION was doomed to be canceled at the end of the season, as not even the network was interested to keep the series' development in check.
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| The brothers are here to tell Gary how good a person he is. |
The episode did not give me hype, despite the fact that it had two recurring characters in this. Miguel was the same old guy, only this time he was not working as a photo journalist, and instead became the big-brother figure for a guest character whose name I will have forgotten an hour after I hit "publish." I am however glad that Miguel was given a bit of backstory here, even if none of it will be used ever again in the show. Meanwhile, Detective Armstrong was also back, and he conveniently decided not to arrest Gary for making a false witness statement, although I am wondering if that can be charged under "obstruction of justice" and if you can be arrested for that. For once, the writers did not know at all what to do with the recurring characters, and the episode became just another attempt at filling an hour of EARLY EDITION. Miguel could have been a random one-off character and it would have changed nothing in the episode. Detective Armstrong could have been any other police detective, because there was no issue in having Gary face one of his law-and-order critics during a severely criminal situation. Although I can see why Armstrong was brought back. By not having him ask too many questions about why Gary was where he was and what he was doing (which is what any good cop would do in such circumstances), the writers had enough time to focus on the story at hand, and it did not become another hour of Gary going against the police and becoming a suspect in the process. I would hope that, one day, Armstrong realizes Gary is an ace up the police’s sleeve, similar to the last time Gary was a hostage and had to deal with the hostage taker from within, while Crumb was patiently waiting outside for Gary to make his move (back in season two's "The Quality of Mercy").
Turns out this episode was not Miguel's story at all, even though he was a main character in it. Not to mention that Joseph's story would not have changed if he had not been Miguel's brother. The writers managed to make Joseph’s story as generic and stereotypical as possible, with the standard amount of worry and doubt in his face, as he was acting up and committing crimes. Raymond was the cliched and absurd villain of the hour, the guy who always thinks in evil terms and who only sees worth when he is committing crimes with a gun in hand. Both Joseph and Raymond were cardboard cutout characters whom you learn about in the first couple of hours in your TV Writing 101 college course, begging the question why those types of characters were even used here. The script could have had some additional tension int he plot, considering the fact that Gary was obstructing justice in a complicated way, but even that story was nowhere to be found in the second half of the episode, making me wonder why Gary lied to Armstrong in the first place.Some very predictable writing with some very convenient story choices made for an hour of television that was anything but memorable.
But the episode went a whole lot darker as the hour went on, and suddenly, there was another hostage situation in which Gary found himself in. This is ... what, the fourth time now Gary has become a hostage? I wonder how often the other subscribers of the paper get taken hostage by evil people with guns, and how often it took for Lucius Snow to get out of heated situations like these. At one point, Gary should bite the bullet, realize he is in a PG 13-rated world, buy a gun and conceal-carry it, because it looks like sometimes he is in the need of some self defense. Gary’s charm and words will not help him one day, and then he will be in trouble.
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| Gary is a hostage. Again. |
And finally, there was the scene with Joseph leaving the gas station, planning to whack Ray with a tool, which was kind of idiotically funny. Yeah, that Hispanic character was not written by a Hispanic writer, let alone a marginalized writer, because Hispanics and black people think hard not to exit a building with a tool in hand that could be mistaken for a gun when there is police out front, weapons drawn. This was such a G-rated scene, it made this whole wannabe MA-rated moment look a whole lot more absurd. Even more so when it was revealed that Joseph survived that shot in the gut and will ow try and lead a good life.
