[Editor: You can find previous episodes by a simple search]

Glittersoul and I sat down with our trusty notepad (because we’re poor ludites, you see) and prepared to take in yet another episode of NBC’s Fear Itself. Part of the delight with this series is that, being an anthology it’s a lot like Gump’s legendary box of chocolate… or life.. or whatever. It’s a mixed bag and there’s no telling what’s coming at you any given airing.

For the two of us, that’s an attractive proposition. While we enjoy the stability that a series offers, this anthology’s proven itself in our eyes at this point. We’re 4 episodes into the total 13 and we feel confident the show’s going to live up to expectations - which is surprising considering the amount of hype we’ve given it since we first heard word of NBC’s risky move to have a Thursday night horror slot.

Let’s get down to business, this fourth episode is entitled ‘In Sickness and In Health‘ and it’s brought to us by John Landis. In case you’re wondering, he’s known for The Three Amigos, Coming to America and 2 episodes of Showtime’s Masters of Horror series. Quite an unusual resume, dontcha think? It actually shows a bit in this episode, too. We’re given the story of a couple about to be married (duh!) and the entire program takes place during the night of their glorious public union. We mean the wedding, sickos!

Maggie Lawson’s our bride, she of Pleasantville and a whole bunch of TV work. Her groom’s played by James Roday who not only appeared in 2005’s Dukes of Hazzard, but was also the writer for Skinwalkers. These two are the main players in a drama that we bet you’ll never be able to guess the outcome of until atleast halfway through the show. The story’s got a killer twist (ahem) to it. Oh, and you get to see a priest played by the surprisingly high-pitched William B. Davis, the world famous "Cigarette Smoking Man" from The X-Files.

This episode certainly served to diversify the show’s offerings because it was far more of a psychological drama with no real supernatural elements to speak of. It’s something of a strange cat and mouse game. Maggie Lawson, in particular, plays one of the weirdest female leads we’ve seen in a while and it’s not until the final moments of the broadcast that we truly came to appreciate her performance. There’s not too much gore throughout and it’s far stronger in suspense.

Overall, we enjoyed this episode. We talked about it for a while and though we’d like to give it a 5 out of 5 because of its originality, on the grounds that it’s horror there was something indefinable we felt went missing. We’re not sure what it is exactly, but somehow it didn’t feel quite as dangerous as we think it should have. Therefore, we award it a 4 out of 5, with the understanding that as a piece of television it deserves higher, but for horror fans we expect a bit more kick.

Until next time, this has been GlowStormLion and Glittersoul, warning you all to carefully consider the hands of a villain before making any serious judgement calls. Capiche?

Oh and that song that serves as the Fear Itself theme song? The one by Serj Tankian of System of a Down? We grabbeded it for you guys

!!!

-- by GlowStormLion of http://www.happyhorror.com

Tags: fear itself, mystery, serial killer, suspense, tv

This entry was posted on Friday, June 27th, 2008 at 2:12 am and is filed under Horror Television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.