I like a show that doesn't BS around with dull scenes in its season
finale. Right off the bat we're given the scenario: Miles and his family are packing up to escape town before the
tsunami hits, Caitlin's Vespa is stolen when she arrives too late to find Miles, and she's knocked out when the crook
pushes her, and Laura steals a rental car from the airport and blows by a road block to find Rich, who has been locked
in a room at the mysterious lab. (And what is Jackson's name and pic doing on the lab's computers? Section
Chief?!?)
Here we go!
The lab is being evacuated (after making sure all the experiments are ok), and one of the men orders that Rich be killed. A guard goes up to shoot Rich, but he gets into a fight with him and throws him out of the room. The bullets don't go through the glass or walls. I gotta say this was a great scene: the fight was realistic, and when Rich actually closes the door, trapping himself again...not many shows would have done that. We would have gotten the usual scene where the hero overpowers the guard and escapes, but here Rich is still trapped, and the guard decides to get the hell out of there before the tsunami comes. But the guard dropped his cell phone...
Meanwhile, Miles and family make it to the ferry, where they meet Dr. Bloom. Miles and Bloom realize that Caitlin must still be trapped because the bridge is out, and this is confirmed when the kid who stole her Vespa shows up at the ferry. Miles grabs him and asks where Caitlin is. The kid tells her that she's back at the house, so Miles dives into the water and swims to find her. Nim is at the house, and leads Miles to Caitlin.
Rich reaches Laura on the cell phone and makes it to the lab. She breaks in and tries to find Rich, with a quick stop to a control center, where she sees that the monorails from last week aren't just leaving the facility...they're going to the bottom of the world. She finds the master switch to open all the doors, and they escape. They stumble upon a crazy lab guy saying "No exit will help you." He also laughs and says "follow the water."
They get out and onto the street, to the moment fans of this show have been waiting for: they run into Miles and Caitlin! Well, not literally. Miles swerves to avoid them, and Laura and Rich jump in the car and the four of them drive off together, to escape the tsunami. (Funny moment: Laura and Rich see Nim in the backseat and Rich says "what the hell is that?"). The car runs out of gas, so they get out and run toward a church, as a giant wave comes toward them. Inside the church, Laura and Miles see a big creature swimming around in the water. They make it to the roof of the church, as a second wave comes. Nim shows up, and the four look over the roof into a completely flooded city. Laura says "It's a whole new world."
END
Very good episode, keeping up the suspense and pace of last week's episode. I like how the "big event" actually felt like a big event and not just a lot of talk about how it was big. And I like how they separated certain characters ,while uniting others. (The acting by everyone on this show is first-rate: realistic and involving.) The ending shows that what Carter Jenkins told me was right, that a second season of this show will be different, with the monsters on land and things more out in the open. But I just hope there is a second season: a check of the NBC site shows that they are advertsing this as the FINAL EPISODE. Yikes.)
Andy Richter: The TV Squad Interview
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
2-06-2006 @ 9:29PM
Tony said...
So when is it comming back on? Midsummer maybe or are they gonna make us wait till the fall?
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2-06-2006 @ 10:07PM
Rico said...
Yeah, great episode, awesome blah, really cool meh...
What the hell was up with the pop-up in the last fifteen seconds of the show? I'm on the edge of my seat, jaw on the floor, taking in the full, awe-inspiring visual of a town underwater, when I see a pop-up on the bottom 1/4 of the screen--
GET THIS AND MORE EPISODES OF SURFACE AND YOUR OTHER FAVORITE NBC SHOWS AT ITUNES.COM!!!!
...what the crap? Who, in their right mind, would think that such an odious intrusion into my suspension of disbelief would go unnoticed? Christ, these tv monkey executives just get dumber and dumber each year...
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2-06-2006 @ 10:17PM
shawn mccollum said...
All references to savanah should be katlin. I think that's her name, sometimes it seems to be pronounced with a d at the end. Couldn't find anything on nbc or imdb about the name.
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2-06-2006 @ 10:39PM
captainmicahp said...
This was a great ending to a great season. But it was marred by an enourmous gap in reality. Rich was in sublevel 10. At least 100 feet underground, and his nextel works. When I had Nextel, it wouldn't get reception inside my house (which is not 10 stories underground). but overall a satisfying season finale but not if it is the last episode. I hope it comes backk next year.
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2-06-2006 @ 11:25PM
mipod said...
"At least 100 feet underground, and his nextel works"
It's not uncommon for companies to have a cell antenna installed in their offices if they get poor reception and cellular service is important. With their own subway system going to the bottom of the world, wouldn't it be possible for them to install a cell antenna?
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2-07-2006 @ 12:47AM
Ernest Leitch said...
The show is great, don't get me wrong, but that was a lot of build up with no answers what so ever. There better be a second season to give us some answers.
Who was behind this? It couldn't be the government. What's the point of flooding the earth and playing Noah?
Why was Niles working for the bad guy?
What does that energy flower have to do with all of this?
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2-07-2006 @ 1:01AM
Walt said...
Yeah, I'll give 'em the cell antenna built into the building, even though I thought of that issue, too. It's probably more weird for a loose brick to be waiting for them near the top of a steeple stairway, but I haven't been in any churches lately...
If I was helping out with the show, I certainly would have had Nim "say" something in the form of a yelp, and have had big daddy Nim react a bit in that view of him swimming and posing for the camera there.
If the show goes, so be it. I like shows that have good runs and leave on a high note. I like how they've created a nice wide ranging mythos so that they can pick up with a new TV series or even wrap it up with a movie.
Is Surface controlled by NBC/Universal so it could make a jump to the SciFi channel?
At any rate, there needs to be some over the top decent SciFi on the main networks. Medium, Touched by a Ghost Whisperer, Invasion... all of those are all well and good, but they're about as SciFi as Desparate Housewives. Threshold was close, but getting cancelled puts a crimp on your story arcs... Coincidental that the story line was not too far removed from Stephen King's "The Cell", eh??
The only thing left is Supernatural, and I don't think that one's got enough chops to make the CW cut for the next season.
Anyway, nice run, Surface producers! Congrats on holding my attention through the season!
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2-07-2006 @ 1:04AM
e said...
I love this show almost as much as I loved Rome and 24. But there was one thing that bent reality for me, aside from the phone conversation. You have a teenaged daughter who's, well, a teenager. There's a tsunami coming. Do you a) tell her to go on her scooter ahead of you, as you have too much work to bother with evacuating right now, where someone may fight her for it - as it's a freaking emergency and people will do anything for transportation, or b)leave immediatelly making sure she's in the vehicle with you, as it's a major catastrophe and, hey, everyone could maybe die horribly?
But that's the only thing I've found to be bad about the show. I hope they don't cancel it. But, if they do, it was great.
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2-07-2006 @ 1:15AM
captainmicahp said...
I didn't know that about the cell antenna in buildings. With that settled This show was awesome.
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2-07-2006 @ 2:48AM
Chris said...
I'm not sure how it being nextel or push to talk works but the thing I couldn't get out of my head during this episode was, "Why can Rich talk on a cell phone when everyone else is getting an all circuits are busy message?". It really bothered me. Overall, great episode and I think it ended in a great place. I hope it doesn't take too long to return.
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2-07-2006 @ 4:27AM
shawn said...
i forgot to watch the episode. but. my teacher/friend's dad played the "chief supervisor of security at the plant" apparently. his name is john shearin. he's done a lot of tv work. he's on IMDB. it's kinda weird.
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2-07-2006 @ 8:24AM
Vince said...
Wasn't there a scene in the commercials for this episode that showed one of the creatures on land? I seem to remember it and it didn't look like the news report where the reporter got chomped, which was a nice touch since it often seems like 'the reporter on the scene' is invulnerable.
I also don't think they answered too many questions and they brought us a bunch of new ones like... What does Jackson have to do with this? What's going on in the Marianas (sp?) Trench? Will there be another season?
Did they actually answer any questions?
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2-07-2006 @ 8:51AM
Willy Volk said...
I thought it was a great season finale that set up Season Two to be really different from anything else on TV. However, while the show answered some of my questions, it failed to address all of them (as promised), and even raised some others (http://www.divester.com/2006/02/07/surface-episode-15-reviewed-and-more-questions-raised/).
I hope the show doesn't end like this. I'm betting it gets picked up for a summertime run.
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2-07-2006 @ 10:11AM
mathmonkey said...
I'll never begrudge anyone their opinions, but my wife and I watched this show for the first time last night and laughed the whole way through. I just can't agree that the acting was great--it's some of the worst acting I've seen on a non-comedy on TV. The camera shots, even the lighting, were horrible. To each his own, of course, but we were not impressed.
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2-07-2006 @ 11:44AM
jimmy said...
great show. Can;t wait for the next season to start again. As some people mentioned, the mega production is awsome, the effects are great. smooth sailing throughout the season.
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2-07-2006 @ 1:12PM
Jimmy said...
I hope this show is around for a second season. It's a lot of fun to watch and last night's episode was a fitting finale to a roller coaster ride of a season. The best part, for me, was when our intrepid cast of characters finally come face to face with each other. And the looks on Rich's and Laura's faces when they see Nim is priceless. Rich is scared, while Laura the scientist is fascinated. And what's up with that friend of theirs they thought had been killed?
The show hasn't exactly been drawing in huge numbers, but considering the competition, Surface held its own. Hopefully, NBC will see a show worth keeping and not dump it simply because it's not drawing 20 million viewers. If they can't see that, then maybe this try-out of Surface repeats on Sci-Fi is a precursor to the show moving there.
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2-07-2006 @ 1:44PM
Pat Robair said...
I love the show! It's not your run-of-the-mill-crappy
reality=type shows we have been forced to watch for the past couple of years.
It kept me on the edge of my seat all season and that's enough for me!
I can't imagine why they won't bring it back for another season but it always seems to happen to the shows I like.
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2-07-2006 @ 2:03PM
Paula said...
Well I am glad I stumbled upon these other comments today. As I am a huge fan of the show...and probably not the usual demographic! I'm a female in my 40s who loves Science fiction...any kind. And this show (along with INVASION And THRESHOLD which unfortuntely they dumped way too soon for anyone to catch on which was a crazy typical knee-jerk network reaction)I've really enjoyed watching. You get tired of all the non stop reality shows on. But I can't find anything definitive on whether the show will return?? The TV Guide and other publications merely said it was the Season Finale...not the Serier Finale. If any one from NBC or any of the powers that be are reading these posts...please give the show a chance! Not all of them can be break out stars like My Name is Earl...and have cushy time slots either!! This is a fun show with entertaining actors. Like ET meets Close Encounters--give the show another chance guys!! Maybe those of you posting can write NBC like I will today...it can't hurt!! Many a show has been saved BY THE FANS!!!!
Thank You!
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2-07-2006 @ 2:15PM
Kimberly Gilbert said...
I thought the finale last time was suppose to be 2 hours long? Well anyways I thought it was great but I would have liked more questions to be answered. Like who is behind all of this. I like the twist of their friend being involved somehow. I certainly hope it comes back for another season. I loved watching it and I loved Miles and Nim together.
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2-07-2006 @ 3:03PM
Seabass said...
I have sucessfully watched the entire season and have come to a conclusion:
This series needs to never come back on the air ever again. I have never seen a show with so many plot holes, shitty acting, completely unrealistic events (even for a Sci-Fi show), and purely stupid storytelling. I might have developed brain cancer from watching the final episode. The highest tech security system, and you can bypass it by HOLDING A RETINAL SCANNER AGAINST A TV MONITOR??? I laughed till I cried.
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