TV Review: Painkiller Jane - "Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself"
Published May 16, 2007
As night settles in over our intrepid ghost hunters, Riley's in the dining room, his laptop hugged to his bosom, looking down the long table wondering if he's seen the Ghost of the Machine.
McBride, just after we heard that everyone needed to bed up in the "buddy system", is seen sitting up in bed alone reading a thick book. Perhaps The Pearl or The Perfumed Garden. Either way he reaches for the lamp and switches off the light to kip down for the night.
Suddenly, we see guys in full-fledged Vietnam camo-gear. It appears he's flashing back to a time when he got some of his men lost. As each says they should have used a map and he could have done better, they get mowed down by gunfire. McBride, before this the epitome of cool boredom, gets all panicky girly. Well, very unmanly, anyway.
We are saved from further facial expressions and tears by an alarm. Not the clock-radio but someone caught wandering around outside. It's the fair lady Anna Robson. Asked why she keeps on coming back to the house she says she still believes her husband Carl is still there "in one form or another." She followed the FBI agents when they took her husband to the house (a safe house, great FBI security, guys), and then she never saw him again. He was being investigated for a kidnapping, and he worked for the people who lost their daughter.
"He was different," she rhapsodizes. "He could take my hand and instantly I would experience whatever Carl was feeling: joy, pain, sorrow, even anger."
Jane says a lot of couples are like that, but Anna says it wasn't just her. She tells a tear-jerker about a homeless guy they encountered on the street. Carl gave the guy $5 and when he gave it to him, he held his hand. The man who looked like he had nothing to live for, she says, was given back his hope.
"It was as if this man just lit up inside."
Someone says it's a touching story. I can't tell if that's meant to be a pun, but I'll give the benefit of the doubt and say no. Either way, the sympathy is short-lived as Connor points out that she's been around every time something bad has happened so she's probably the neuro. Most of the rest of the team believes instead that given these odd powers of restoration, it's likely her husband is the neuro.
A little while later, McBride is back in his room, stoking a fire while wearing his turtleneck sweater. He tells PJ it seems people experience the fear, specific to the individual, he or she fears the most. He points to the hematophobe and the arachnophobe. He says he saw men dying under his command because he made a mistake. The Vietnam flashback wasn't an incident that actually happened.
PJ still can't tell him quite what she saw, but she does say she saw a woman close to her. As they talk it up, Connor is downstairs listening to his music with earbuds. He looks up and his eyes go wide.
- TV Review: Painkiller Jane - "Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself"
- Published: May 16, 2007
- Type: Review
- Section: Video
- Filed Under: Video: Action, Video: SF, Video: TV Recap, Video: Television
- Part of a feature: Painkiller Jane
- Writer: Temple Stark
- Temple Stark's BC Writer page
- Temple Stark's personal site
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Comments
I hear you. It's hard to get into for sure because there are cringeworthy moments. The only reason, well two reasons I stick with the show is that I'm ever hopeful that its potential can be reached. As I said up there, the characters are starting to get somewhat richer - and we are only five episodes in.
The other is that I do reviews of the show. I'm really going to have to find a way to record it though, because it's ruining my Fridays something terrible.
There aren't too many people watching it right now.
Oh there is a third reason - Loken's tall. I can almost look her in the eye ;-) But I'm also not interested at all in just focusing on her looks in a review. It's just to easy and feels cheap. I have mentioned her height a few times, though. (5'11")









Ya know, I've tried, but I cannot seem to get into this show....