The rescue specialists in Global's The Guard continue to flounder personally and professionally in the series' fourth episode, "When I'm Sixty-Four," airing Tuesday. With these people as Coast Guards, I'm glad I'm on dry land.
There's some welcome levity to this episode, which centres around the efforts of First Mate Laura (Claudette Mink) to bond with her coworkers – or at least make the appearance of bonding – after being passed over for promotion to irresponsible Duty Captain Miro (Steve Bacic).
The gang, including pretty, alcoholic Carly (Zoie Palmer) and her new-age nutbar of a boyfriend Wendell (Ryan Robbins), and pretty, post-traumatic-stressed Andrew (Jeremy Guilbaut) and his put-upon wife Amy (Julie Patzwald), react with varying mixtures of horror and dread to the social invitation. The event turns out about as well as you might expect from that kind of enthusiastic start.
When Miro's inappropriately young and vapid date exclaims "I hope there's going to be dancing later!" Carly answers, "Why, did she bring her pole?" Laughter is a welcome relief from the relentless misery of most of these lives we're following.
Besides the laughs and angst, the episode has an obligatory rescue at sea as well as the introduction of a new rivalry between our heroes and the SAR Techs from the Department of Defense, who seem to be to the Coast Guard what the FBI are to local police in every cop drama ever made for TV – that is, the arrogant bullies who encroach on their territory.
Though The Guard started with the strongest ratings among the slew of new Canadian-made offerings, it hasn't managed to capitalize on the gift of having top-rated House as a lead-in. This fourth episode – which the producers sent out for review in a wise and rare-in-Canadian-TV bid to keep the show from sinking further – is fortunately stronger than the last couple of outings, though it continues to suffer from storytelling torpor.
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