Fear Itself "Spooked" (2008)

You can tell it's summer when you start to watch shows you really wouldn't give the time of day during the busy normal TV season. However as we go through a drought of new material (NO reality shows) desperate times call for desperate measures. I asked my friend not so long ago why anthology shows were so numerous in the 1950s on television but you never see any on TV now. Could such a show be done now? NBC's answer was this horror anthology series and I while I was indifferent to the pilot, I was very disappointed in last week's episode.

My biggest grievance is that it's just so predictable. I realize that a show which utilizes horror conventions will stray onto this route but I mean come on. James' gun received at least 4 huge closeups in the episode before it was used to dispatch Harry. That's more than some characters got in the episode.

I also had a problem with how the story ended. So the man who went to great lengths (obviously he overstepped his boundaries but still) to rescue a senator's son causes the death of the would-be kidnapper. His deranged sister then leads Harry to house that makes you confront you biggest fear/mistake, a ramshackle of a hellhole in the middle of a perfect suburb. Unable to kill himself and realizing the girl set him up he refuses to kill her in anger only to be shot down by his partner misunderstanding the situation when he burst into the room. So who were we to cheer for? The cop who breaks all the rules and killed someone? The brother who died who kidnapped a child? The sister who tried to take her own life and then went after her brother's murderer? A convoluted plot with a unsatisfying ending.

Favorite moment: Not a moment at all actually. Obviously Harry is named after Dirty Harry however I loved realizing his last name "Siegel" obviously has to be an allusion to Don Siegel, the director of Dirty Harry.