Star Trek: The Next Generation - Episode 115 (Power Play)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

The Enterprise encounters a distress call that's apparently been transmitting for over 200 years. They're able to identify the ship and realize that it must have crashed there. The bad news is that it's on a planet that couldn't possibly support humanoid life, so Captain Picard is ready to make a note in the history books and leave it at that. However, Deanna Troi, the ship's empathic counselor, senses life on the planet and a lot of it. Troi, Commander Riker and Lieutenant Commander Data take a shuttle down. Unfortunately, the shuttle crashes, leaving Riker with a broken arm. Transporter Chief O'Brien is able to beam down with a pattern enhancer and rescue his crewmates. Before they can beam up, all four are knocked unconscious; three of them have a small blue energy sphere enter their bodies. (One approaches Riker, but turns away at the last moment.) Riker is able to activate the last of the pattern enhancers and the ship is able to beam them up.

With the exception of Riker's broken arm, all four of them check out in sickbay. They all return to active duty. Shortly after arriving on the bridge, Troi, Data and O'Brien try to take over the ship. Riker sits in his normal seat the entire time. It's apparent that three of the people beamed up have been taken over. (Checking the transporter logs confirms this. The only hypothesis as to why Riker wasn't taken over is that his broken arm provided some sort of protection.)

The entities that have taken over the crewmembers have access to their respective hosts' memories and talents making it easy for them to mess with the ship. O'Brien's entity is able to raise shields and put the transporter in a diagnostic mode, making it impossible for anyone to beam them off the ship. Troi's entity has access to her empathic abilities. Data's entity has Data's superhuman power and resistance to most things that would kill or injure a human.

The three entities claim to be survivors from the shipwreck; they are the crew's spirits, separated from the bodies miraculously. Troi's entity claims to be the captain and is able to give Picard information that a captain would know. The entities want the ship moved over the southern polar region so that their remains can be beamed up and properly buried. It turns out that they are actually criminals deliberately left there as punishment. (At leas one of the entities must have been able to access the memories of the shipwrecked crew.) The plan is to beam up the others so that they might be able to use the bodies of the rest of the crew, or at least use the ship to go to some other planet.

"Power Play" isn't an exceptional episode, especially since we had another take-over attempt in the previous episode. (It seems like I was just saying that The Enterprise had this really creative way of taking over a ship and here they go using a more conventional method. Granted, there are unconventional aspects to it, but still…) It's also one of the more violent episodes. Upon entering 10-Forward, the possessed crewmembers open fire and injure five people. It looks like they just want to lay waste to the entire room.

The episode was more of an opportunity for the three actors to act a little differently. Brent Spiner's role as Data was probably the biggest change of character. He had played the part of Lore, Data's evil ‘twin', but Lore was condescending. Data's possessor was more maniacal. It was a much bigger departure. The sad part is that once the entities leave their respective hosts, Troi is the only one to make mention of what it was like. O'Brien and his wife talk about it a little and Data merely apologizes to Worf for his behavior. Apparently, Data was aware of what happened, but made no mention of wanting to learn from it or forget about it. No matter how negative experience, Data could have used it to his advantage in his quest to learn what it is to be human.

Those that don't watch the show regularly might be a little lost. If you're willing to put aside any questions that you might have, you should be able to enjoy it. The story relies a lot on stuff presented in the episode. However, I think that regular viewers will get more out of it.

On the whole, it was a disappointing episode. The alien entities seemed to give up too easily. Once they had been stopped, they just left their hosts and allowed themselves to be beamed back down to the planet. (Then again, Picard was threatening to blow them out of a shuttle bay door if they didn't.) It just seemed too easy after all that work. 

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Star Trek: The Next Generation - Episode 112 (Violations)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

You wouldn't think of an empath as necessarily being a historian, but the Ullian have such people. Not every Ullian is capable of retrieving memories, but some are. The Enterprise is transporting three Ullians to their a planet, where they will record the memories of as many people as they can. The episode opens with one of the Ullians trying to help Keiko O'Brien elaborate on a memory of a chipped cup. She starts out with just the image of the cup and ends up remembering where it was from.

Trouble begins shortly after the opening scene when Counselor Troi, an empath herself, starts reliving an old memory that turns violent. She then falls into a coma. The thing is that we know who did it. In the relived memory, we can see a Ulian called Jev. However, since Troi falls into a coma, she can't exactly pick Jev out of a lineup. The next to fall into a coma is Commander Riker. Both show similar signs, and those signs would point to a particular illness, but some of the other signs of that illness are lacking.

This is one of those times where the writers didn't dumb down the main characters. The bridge crew realizes that the comas occurred during the stay of the Ulians and go through every other possible cause of the comas before saying to the Ulians that it can't be a coincidence. However, before Dr. Crusher can perform appropriate tests on the Ulians, she also falls into a coma.

Troi is the first to wake up, having been in a coma for three days. She can't remember what happened, but allows Jev to help her. Captain Picard and others voice concerns, but figures that Jev has the right to defend himself. He helps Troi recall the events leading up to her coma, but inserts the face of his father over his own face. Thus, Troi points the finger at Jev's father. Meanwhile, Data and La Forge are going over records of the Ulians' travels and find that there are several similar comas and a few unexplained ones during the Ulians' stay on several planets and that Jev is the only one at all of the locations. Worf leads a security team to Troi's quarters before Jef can attack her again.

It's difficult to press charges against Jev since the Federation has never had to deal with anything of this nature. Fortunately, the Ulians have had to deal with this. The problem is that they haven't had to deal with it in 300 years. They have medical records that far back and offer to do what they can for the three victims on the Enterprise.

Of the three victims, Troi was the best acted. She seemed to show the most resistance to what was going on. Maybe she had the best resistance since she was an empath; I don't know. There's also not much suspense. From the first attack, we know that it's Jev. Granted, just as Jev inserted his father's image, one of the other two Ulians could have used Jev's image. However, you have to figure that it was one of the three Ulians on the ship; it was just too easy.

Overall, it was a good episode. There are no plot holes or obvious mistakes. I'd say that it's a four-star episode. The use of this sort of invasion is used as a metaphor for rape, and is even called as much by Jev's father. (After all, the name of the episode is "Violations".) Those that watch Star Trek regularly will still be able to enjoy the episode. Those that don't might be a little lost and will probably miss a few references. If you're going to watch this episode, you'll probably want to start watching episodes prior to this one.


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Star Trek The Next Generation - Episode 105 (Disaster)

One of the complaints with Star Trek: The Next Generation was how often technology failed.  It was bad enough to have the captain trapped in a holodeck, but it would also happen right when he was needed for a key moment in a mission.  Here, the Enterprise is hit by something that causes the systems to go off line and the ship to compartmentalize.  Counselor Troi is trapped on the bridge with Ensign Ro and Chief O’Brien.  The bridge officer in command is dead, leaving Troi in charge.

Meanwhile, Chief O’Brien’s wife, Keiko is stuck in Ten-Forward with Worf, Riker and Data.  They can’t make it to the bridge, but they could make it to Engineering to regain control of the ship.  They leave Worf with Keiko to tend to the injured, as they’re also cut off from sickbay.

Captain Picard is stuck in a turbo lift with three young children, all of whom had won a science fair.  He was giving them a tour of the ship when the disaster hit.  His ankle is broken, making an escape difficult.  Add to this that Picard doesn’t deal well with children, especially when they’re all assuming the worst.

This leaves Dr. Crusher and Chief Engineer La Forge stuck in a cargo bay.  That doesn’t sound so bad except for the fact that a plasma fire starts, which is emitting enough radiation that it will become a problem if they don’t get out soon.  Add to that the fact that there’s some material in the bay that’s normally stable, but explodes when exposed to enough radiation.

Like most disaster movies/episodes, you have to assume that most, if not all, of the main characters will make it through.  There are several guest characters, but Keiko is the only one in any immediate medical danger, as she goes into early labor.  (She wasn’t due for a few more weeks, if I recall.)  As there’s no enemy for anyone to seek vengeance against later on, we can assume that everyone lives.

Mostly, it’s a matter of growth for several characters.  Picard has to get over dealing with children, which he does.  He even manages to earn their respect.  Similarly, Troi has never been in command before.  It’s revealed that she holds the rank of Lieutenant Commander, but she’s a counselor.  I’ve always gotten the impression that there aren’t even other counselors on board for her to manage.  You‘re maybe wondering where the suspense comes from.  Containment on the antimatter is falling. If it goes below 15%, the ship goes boom.  They have no way of knowing if anyone is in engineering to fix it.

The delivery of Molly O’Brien is played more for comedic effect.  It’s basically all of the jokes of an inexperienced male put on the spot because of an emergency.  Keiko is emotional and yelling at Worf, who has only a holographic simulation to go by.  (You’d think that they would have gone over a few common problems.  Worf has only a minimal idea of what he’s doing.)  When the baby is delivered safely, both are able to laugh about it.

The other two stories seem more like filler.  Data has to risk his life to get Riker past an electrical surge.  They make it to find engineering empty, which is strange.  They don’t even comment on finding dead people.  There should be at least one person there.  Even if there wasn’t, how is it that no one else was able to get there?  I get that the crawlways were blocked off, but you’d think someone else could have made it.  Oh, and remember how the containment on the antimatter couldn‘t go below 15%?  Guess when Riker and Data notice the containment failure.

As for the cargo bay, it’s like the writers needed one more story to round things out. You can’t have La Forge and Crusher just sitting there talking, now.  Can you?  Then again, why do they need two lethal problems to deal with in a way that doesn’t really make any sense?  Other people have pointed out that one panel is used to open the cargo bay door and another is used to shut the door.  For that matter, why not have it set up on a timer or something?  Set it for the longest that Crusher feels they can go without oxygen?

So far as I know, the only thing to come out of this is Troi eventually wanting to take the test to become a commander.  Worf delivering the baby is mentioned a few times.  Other than that, this is basically a throwaway episode.  I think the only thing that the episode was missing was an exclamation point at the end of the title.  (“Disaster!”)  If you’re watching it streaming on Netflix or get the season set, go for it.  If you’re paying by the episode, don’t worry about it.


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Star Trek: The Next Generation - Episode 99 (In Theory)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

The Original Series had a Vulcan named Spock as the outsider looking in at humanity, denying that part of himself. The Next Generation had an android named Data as an outsider looking in at humanity wondering if he could ever achieve that. “In Theory” is Data’s attempt at romance.

He and Lieutenant Jenna D’Sora are working on illuminating a dark-matter nebula. Lt. D’Sora is just out of a bad relationship and appreciates Data’s help in keeping her from going back. It isn’t long before the two are start to think of themselves as a couple. Meanwhile, strange things start happening. Data’s cat Spot gets out of his quarters and things fall through tables. It becomes a problem when someone falls through a floor and is killed when they become stuck between decks. (For some, this might prove to be a gross-out moment.)

Data figures out that the dark matter is causing ‘normal’ matter to phase in and out. This was the good part of the episode. The trouble with the episode is that it isn’t as easy for Data to figure out romance. The relationship didn’t really work for several reasons. First, Data wasn’t really trying to get into a relationship; he was being himself and Lt. D’Sora couldn’t get enough of it. She was misreading his behavior as interest. Also, Data very often incorrectly read the situation, himself. He would start yelling at Lt. D’Sora, thinking they were having a lover’s quarrel. (This was a particularly painful scene; I think it was too far out of character for Data.) It was ultimately a rebound relationship on Lt. D’Sora’s part and, as a result, wasn’t likely to work out anyway. The whole thing didn’t seem like a real relationship. It was more like it was a way for Data to be involved in a human activity.

Although there were several times that Data spoke of the possibility of a relationship, this is his only actual attempt at one. (There was that incident with Lt. Yar, but that’s another story.) I think the aspect of Data in a relationship could have been handled much better. This episode wouldn’t have been so bad if Data had at least tried it again and gotten better, but the entire story like is so out of place and mishandled that I really can’t give this episode more than two stars.

It isn’t even the acting. The episode was well acted and well directed, but was poorly written. Not even the other story line can bring it up past that. Don’t buy this episode. If it comes on TV or if you get the season on DVD, watch it, but it’s not worth paying $3 for the rental.


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Star Trek: The Next Generation - Episode 91 (Night Terrors)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.


There are some episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation where I wonder if someone lost a bet.  I’m not saying that the episode was horrible.  I’m also not saying that each of the 178 episodes has to be great.  It’s just that you know at some point, they were falling behind and desperately needed a script.  Night Terrors should not have ever seen the light of day.

The story begins with the Enterprise finding the USS Brittain.  (Yes, that’s how it’s spelled.)  It’s been missing for about a month.  When an away team beams over, they find most of the 34 on board dead.  There’s one survivor:  a science advisor named Andrus Hagan.  He’s catatonic and not saying much.  Interestingly, he’s a Betazoid.  The Enterprise’s counselor is half Betazoid.  Coincidence?  Probably, but it will be important later on in the story.

From what the good Doctor Crusher can tell, the other 33 people killed each other or committed suicide.  There are no apparent reasons, like disease or poisoning.  Everyone just suddenly went crazy.  The mystery of the Brittain is so interesting that no one notices that everyone’s not getting any sleep.  Well, almost everyone.  Data is unaffected, being an android that doesn’t need sleep.  Troi, on the other hand, is sleeping.

Not only is Troi sleeping, she’s having nightmares.  She’s floating towards two points of light.  A mysterious, disembodied voice is going on about a moon and two eyes in the dark.  She tries to ask what the blazes they’re talking about, but she can’t get an answer out of them.  They just keep going on about a moon in the dark.

By the time anyone realizes that there might be a danger in most of the crew not getting any sleep, it’s too late.  The ship is caught in what they call a Tyken’s rift, which drains power from the ship.  It was named for a captain that figured out that a large-enough explosion would get the ship out of the rift.  The thing is no one ever talked about sleep deprivation, hallucinations or nightmares associated with a Tyken’s rift.  This is something else entirely.

When Hagen finally does start talking, he mentions something about eyes and moons and orbits and stuff.  Troi realizes that there must be another ship caught in the rift.  They must somehow be sending out a telepathic message that’s received by Betazoids, but interfering with the sleep cycles of any other humanoid that sleeps.

The two eyes must be the binary stars they’re close to.  But what’s this crap about one moon orbiting?  It takes some work, but Troi and Data realize that it might be hydrogen, the most common (and volatile) element in the universe.  Since it’s a distress call, it would stand to reason that they’re asking for hydrogen to be released, which the Enterprise does.  It takes a moment, but the aliens hold up their end of the bargain and a large explosion frees both ships.  We’re left to assume that someone will be back for the Brittain.

I didn’t particularly care for the episode when it first aired.  Now that I know more, I’m better equipped to pick apart the episode.  First off, isn’t it odd that each of the Federation ships had exactly one person on board that could receive the telepathic transmission?  You’d think that there would be a few more Betazoids on board.  Add to this that most of the rest of the crew can’t sleep because they’re on a different brainwave set.  Data is immune purely by luck of not needing sleep.  All other people on board started going crazy after ten days.  Interesting.

Oh, and did the aliens know that Betazoids used that frequency?  I suppose it could be something common to telepaths.  I suppose the aliens may have simply assumed that all humanoids operated on that REM frequency.  I have to wonder if the aliens were monitoring the Enterprise or if it was some sort of automated transmission.  If not, it would have been cruel to continuing transmitting knowing the effect it was having on most of the people.  (An automated transmission kind of makes sense.  The Brittain was there for a month and the aliens would have been there longer.  It’s possible that they went into suspended animation to conserve life support and food.)

Speaking of the transmission, the only reason I can think of for using riddles is to draw out the episode.  It would have been way too easy to have the aliens just say what they needed the Enterprise to do.  (“Smithers, release the hydrogen.”)  Instead, they go with this one-moon thing.  Don’t say, well they didn’t know if we knew what hydrogen was.  Any race capable of space travel should know what hydrogen is.  We used hydrogen and oxygen as rocket fuel.  If a science advisor didn’t pick up on it, what hope does Troi have?

In the end, everyone just goes their separate ways.  We don’t hear what happens to the aliens.  No one from the Enterprise asks the aliens about their method of communication.  It isn’t even shown if the Brittain was destroyed in the explosion.  The episode has no replay value.  Don’t buy this on VHS.  Even if you get the DVD set, you may want to consider skipping this episode unless you’re set on watching all the episodes. 

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Star Trek: The Next Generation - Episode 86 (The Wounded)

I remember watching an episode of Star Trek (the original series) and thinking that Ferengi, Borg, Bajorans and other races from the spin-off series existed.  They just hadn’t been invented yet.  At some point, each race was created for whatever reason.  The Ferengi and Borg were to serve as enemies, for instance.  In The Wounded, we get to meet the Cardassians, who are not on friendly terms with the Federation.

There is a peace treaty, so it comes as a surprise when a Cardassian ship attacks the Enterprise.  Captain Picard is able to get the situation under control pretty quickly.  When pressed for an explanation, Gul Macet explains that a Starfleet ship attacked first.  (A gul is their equivalent of a captain.)  Picard asks for an hour to verify this with Starfleet.  Turns out it’s true.  Captain Maxwell, in command of the Phoenix, attacked a Cardassian base.  He’s not responding to anyone, so no one has any idea what happened.  Oh, and Picard is to preserve the peace…at all costs.

Macet and two of his aides come onboard the Enterprise to find Maxwell before any more harm is done.  Interestingly, Chief O’Brien served with Maxwell.  They responded to a Cardassian attack in which Maxwell lost his family.  The Enterprise finds Maxwell, but can’t get to him before he finds two more Cardassian ships.  Picard reluctantly agrees to give the Cardassians the prefix codes for the Phoenix, which would allow the Cardassians to lower the Phoenix’s shields.  This doesn’t help; the two Cardassian ships are destroyed, anyway.

Up to this point, Picard had been resisting.  He realizes now that he can’t drag his feet any more.  He increases speed to warp 9 to get to Maxwell as quickly as possible.  Picard and Maxwell talk.  Maxwell is under the impression that the Cardassians are rearming.  He throws out a few vague statements.  (“Lives were at stake.”  “We had to act now.”)  Picard bluntly informs Maxwell that Maxwell will return to the Phoenix and follow the Enterprise back to Starbase 211.  Maxwell agrees insomuch as he’ll bolt at the first sign of a Cardassian ship.

Sure enough, Maxwell finds one that’s using subspace shielding, which makes scanning impossible.  Maxwell insists that Picard beam over, which Picard refuses.  O’Brien is able to beam over during a fiftieth-of-a-second window that the Phoenix’s shields provide.  (Yes, 1/50 of a second.)  O’Brien convinces Maxwell that he’s not getting his way on this.  Maxwell hands his ship over to his first officer and spends the rest of the trip to the starbase confined to quarters.

I remember when this episode first aired.  The thing that stood out the most was the song, The Minstrel Boy.  I don’t know why, but it was one of those things that stuck with me.  I also remember thinking it was odd that we never got to see any of Maxwell’s crew.  When O’Brien beams over to the Phoenix, we go from O’Brien telling Picard that he can do it to O’Brien walking into Maxwell’s ready room.  I think the writers wanted to avoid the issue of the crew being complicit in his actions.

Maxwell was someone who lost his family.  It took a while for him to finally snap.  I’m sure other Starfleet officers present had similar issues.  O’Brien even snapped at the Cardassian aides during the episode.  The fact that Maxwell was in command of a starship made things more dangerous.  O’Brien was in pretty deep denial about his feelings.  After snapping at the aides, he goes to have dinner with his wife and says that he feels fine about the Cardassians.  The war’s over.

The ending also stuck with me.  Picard and Macet have a conversation in the observation lounge.  Macet asks Picard why he didn’t inspect the ship, to which Picard responds with the truth.  If Picard had gone over, both sides would be making preparations for war and that’s not what Picard was instructed to do.

I originally took the scene to mean that we’d never know, even though it’s likely that the Cardassians were up to something.   There was a scene with Glin Telle, one of Macet’s aides, getting caught looking at sensitive information.  Macet confined Telle to quarters, but I always took the scene as the outcome of plausible deniability.  Macet probably had his aides look at stuff every chance they got.  Telle just has the bad luck of getting caught, so Macet had to appear to reprimand him.  Likewise, Picard points out that Maxwell was a good man that happened to do something very wrong.  The fact that he was right about the Cardassians doesn’t excuse killing 700 people, but the Cardassian government has been caught.  Picard can’t do anything about it…at the moment, but the Cardassians are on notice.


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Star Trek: The Next Generation - Episode 85 (Data's Day)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

We had a string of family-centered episodes beginning with Family and ending with Legacy and Future Imperfect.  Then, we had character-centered episodes, starting with Final Mission, which focused on Wesley Crusher.  Then, we had The Loss, which centered on Counselor Troi.  Now, we have Data’s Day.  As you might expect, it focuses on Lt. Cmdr. Data.  Data is to give away Keiko Ishikawa at her wedding to Miles O’Brien.  We even have Data narrating through letters to Bruce Maddox, who he has presumably forgiven.  (You may remember Maddox from the second-season episode, The Measure of a Man.)

The events surrounding the wedding are very confusing for Data.  Keiko gets cold feet and calls off the wedding.  Data assumes that since the decision is designed to make Keiko happy, it will make Miles happy.  Data is confused when Miles storms off.  Data also has to play messenger between the two in order to get the wedding back on, which Chief Engineer La Forge is certain will happen.  Data also has to learn to dance for the wedding, leading to a funny scene in the holodeck.

The B story involves Vulcan Ambassador T'Pel, who’s being transported to the Romulan Neutral Zone to meet for some sort of super important negotiation that only she can conduct.  It comes as a shock when she dies in a transporter accident.  Or did she?  There seems to be some question as to what happened.  And all of those questions she was asking were kind of suspicious.

This is one of those episodes where you could probably follow it if this was your first time watching, but you’re going to miss a few things.  For instance, during the second season, Commander Bruce Maddox tries to have Data report to a starbase to be disassembled and studied so that more androids like him might be built.  I did find it odd that there was no mention of family for the bride or groom.  If you’re wondering if you missed anything, you didn’t.  I understand that they’re on a starship, but you’d think there’d be some mention of some siblings wanting to attend or something.

This is one of the few times we get to see a bridge crew do anything with a non-bridge officer.  Yes, it does happen.  Mostly, It’s a bridge officer dating someone and realizing that it’s not meant to be.  I think there was a later episode focusing on non-bridge officers, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen that episode.

I would recommend watching the episode, but I would suggest watching the episodes in order. A lot of the humor comes from knowing that Data doesn’t understand the nuances of human behavior.  While picking out gifts, he and Worf (a Klingon) discuss human weddings.  Both are outsiders, but they have slightly different perspectives.  Data also experiments with jokingly calling people names.

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To Love, Honor and Deceive (1996)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

WARNING:  I’m going to pretty much give away everything.  If you’ve never seen this movie and have any interest in doing so, now would be a good time to do so.  If you want to know why you should skip it, then please read on.


I’ve often wondered why people would star in a made-for-TV movie.  Some are good, but many tend to fall flat.  I don’t know if the scripts aren’t good enough to make it to the big screen or if the people involved just don’t care.  To Love, Honor and Deceive is the perfect example of this

The movie starts with a happy family doing things that a happy family does.  Sydney is a mother thinking about going back to work, but really likes being there for her son, Adam.  Husband and Father Matthew works in the import/export business.  Matthew can’t spend that much time with Adam because he has to be in other countries for long spans of time.

Matthew decides to take Adam out on the boat, which seems innocent enough.  Problem is that, because of a bad storm, Matthew and Adam don’t make it back.  Police find the boat and enough stuff floating around that Matthew and Adam are presumed dead.

Sydney doesn’t buy it.  At first, it seems like she’s just grieving and can’t accept the loss of her family.  The FBI tells her to drop it.  Things get suspicious when she goes to visit Matthew’s parents.  She finds that they don’t exist, nor has anyone ever heard of Matthew.  (I find it odd that she never got suspicious when they weren’t at their own son’s wedding, nor did they have any contact with their soon-to-be-5-year-old grandson.)

After a little digging, she comes to realize that her husband had led another life and had essentially done the same thing to another woman.  Sydney pretty much writes off her husband, but wants her son back.  The FBI still denies everything.  No one will give her any information.  So, she sets off to find her son and eventually does.

There are a lot of questions that I have.  First, as I mentioned, it seems odd to me that she never met her in-laws.  From the sound of it, she never even got a phone call from them.  Since her son is turning 5, we can assume that they’ve been married at least that long.  They were probably dating for a while before that.  I would think that if you were going to marry someone, or at least have that kind of intent, you’d be better off saying that your parents had died.

Also, why is it that the FBI is always made out to be the bad guys?  They’re always the one withholding information and telling the local police what to do.  I always imagine some FBI agent sitting at home watching movies like this and yelling at the TV, “Oh, we’re not like that at all!!!”  The FBI really seems to get a bad reputation.

More importantly, Sydney has a best friend that apparently slept with her husband, but the best friend doesn’t even get a name.  You’d think that someone like that would at least be called by name at least once.  I will say that I wasn’t complaining that Rosalind Chao played the friend.  I’ve always liked her.

While watching the movie, I thought Sydney looked familiar.  It took me a while to realize that she had been on the TV series Las Vegas.  She and Chao were two of only a handful of actors that I realized from other things.  Many of the other actors were new to me.  While there was some good acting, I felt like the overall acting wasn’t that good.  The husband seemed a little flat at times.  Even in the one scene where he gets angry, it doesn’t seem like he’s really getting that emotional.

In fact, I’d say that the entire movie wasn’t that good.  I understand that her husband lied to her, but Sydney showed no interest whatsoever in getting him back, even if it was for a divorce.  I felt like it just happened.  There was no explanation over why she lost interest in him so quickly.

There’s no back story to the couple, which would have been nice, especially considering that the husband’s story wasn’t real.  (There should have been a lot of clues aside from missing parents.)  The movie was fairly disappointing and seemed to alternate between dragging out and being rushed.  I’d recommend avoiding this movie if you have a choice. 

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