Every question answered? That is what the ads said for this show. But it didn't happen. We were left with plenty of questions. What question was answered? Maybe we were told that Johnnie's destiny is to spend the rest of his life in politics (or at least the next few seasons) trying to prevent global thermonuclear war.
One thing that this episode does is to remind us that Johnnie actually suffered two head injuries. The first one happened when Johnnie originally fell on his head in the winter of 1976 while skating as a child. That gave him a limited ability to see the future. Then the second injury in the car accident (June 5, 1995) put him into a coma for years and on awakening his premonitional powers were much stronger.
I really liked the scene of James Stillson, the Bible salesman, telling his child Greg Stillson how to sell. Then they worked Johnnie's mother beautifully. It sets up the tone for both of their characters.
Cleaves Mills 1976. Johnnie has this flash of a city burning as he takes the Bible from Greg Stillson, the son of James Stillson the Bible saleman. Johnnie falls down. Johnnie' mother tells James Stillson that Johnnie fell on the ice two months ago. But in this scene wasn't it too warm and too green to be just two months since the ice was hard on lakes? The writers should have made the time period to be three or four months ago.
Okay, how can a large number of kids burn to death in Cathy's Steak House when a lightening bolt hits it?
Also, since the restaurant was going to stay open anyhow why didn't these happen:
• The sheriff could have stationed a deputy or two at the doors to keep the doors open.
• The sheriff could have gotten firemen to hang out there at the restaurant.
• Johnnie could have hung out near the restaurant ready to rush to the rescue.
After all, the lightening bolt was still coming. And why would the doors jam? How could the doors jam? There is a patio visible where kids are out on it and there are glass doors on to it that must be open. The choice of restaurant doesn't seem a good one for the purpose.
Also, as Walt pulls up the fire doesn't look like it is as far along as it did in an earlier scene. Granted the fire was being put out by the firemen. But more damage should have been showing. And why would a woman at that time be getting led away? It seems too late at that point for anyone still alive to be getting escorted out. Then the next day the amount of damage to the restaurant is total. That sequence visually just doesn't seem plausible.
And why would Sarah be there when Walt and Johnnie try to get the restaurant owner to shut down to avoid the deaths from the lightning strike?
This premise seems flawed. Some other way to make the bad opening events happen could have been done.
Greg Stillson on the bus: First the bus is shown going by and the windows on the right back of the bus look like blinds are drawn. But then when James Stillson enters the back of the bus we can see passing scenery out the window. This seems like an inconsistency.
The scenes of Greg Stillson at the farm with Charlotte the farm daughter are well done. He's a regular Elmer Gantry sounding sincere to those with closed eyes while he and Charlotte are exchanging looks that lead to her later seduction.
Greg Still to Charlotte in the car: "I got dreams, Powerful dreams that come to me at night. I don't know what they mean. but they come to me. I'll get there some day."
Greg Stillson: Okay, we already know that when Johnnie took the Bible from him when they were both kids that Johnnie saw an explosion. Stillson now is running for Congress. So one immediately thinks that Stillson will become President and start a nuclear war. Later Stillson tells a girl he's just seduced as they ride along in a car that he sees dreams that he doesn't understand but that they are big and involve his future.
Okay, this is a familiar theme. In how many movies and TV shows has one character had premonitions that another character was going to bring on nuclear apocalypse? Of course the original Dead Zone movie of course had this plot back in 1983 with Christopher Walken as Johnnie and Martin Sheen as Greg Stillson (I'm assuming this in turn came from The Dead Zone book). But there was another movie (Mindstorm with Michael Ironside?) where the leader of a cult switches bodies with a Senator as the cult leader lays dying. Then this other psychic (a rather attractive woman whose name escapes me) has to kill the politician before the politician can become President and start a nuclear war.
Those are just two I can think of off the top of my head. This has been done enough times that I'm really not eager to see The Dead Zone as a TV show to follow down this same well trod path.
Anyway, Johnnie's steak house premonition makes him seriously famous. I loved the letters they read off from people who want Johnnie to help them. But it would have been nice to go for another season with Johnnie just helping out obscure people in bizarre ways before he became a celebrity.
Dana wants Johnnie. That makes Sarah realize acutely just how much she still wants Johnnie too.
Reverend Purdy of the Faith-Heritage Alliance supports independent candidate Greg Stillson. This makes Purdy look worse. It hasn't been clear up to now just how sincere Purdy is in his religious beliefs and how much of a con man he is. This turn in the direction of the show makes him look more like he's probably a con man.
I've been wondering since the first episode whether Purdy got into Johnnie's money. So when Johnnie asked Purdy for his trust money so Johnnie can go on a trip I'm thinking maybe now Johnnie will learn that Purdy has drained a lot of his money.
Purdy to Johnnie: "It is your destiny to help people." Hey, I agree. Its a shame he has to go off rescuing the world from nuclear apocalypse instead. I hope this doesn't become the permanent theme of the show for many seasons to come. Also, if this thread of the show comes to an end it has to be done in a way that doesn't get Johnnie killed like it did in the movie (makes it hard to come back for the next season unless you have a witch who can summon your body back to life).
When Purdy touches Johnnie and once again Johnnie sees the explosion over what might be Washington DC one also immediately thinks that Purdy will be going along with Stillson as an advisor for his rise in politics.
Sarah's really having a hard time with the idea that Johnnie is involved with Dana. Sarah comes over at 10 PM. When she gives her speech to Johnnie I couldn't figure out whether his facial expressions were appropriate or what he was feeling. Johnnie and Sarah get together physically. Okay, this is a part I have to wonder about. It seems like this is speeding the show along too quickly. The tension between Walt, Johnnie and Sarah is helpful in the show. But if this comes out it should result in the end of the relationship between Sarah and Walt. That just seems like it messes with a valuable element of the show too soon, just at the end of the first season.
Charlie as the source of the Shady Pines article: Too many people saw Greg Stillson and the other guy go into see Charlie. So how can they get him up to the roof and credibly threaten to throw him off without all those people being able to tie them together and to make Stillson the prime suspect? The lobby going into his office should be empty except for Linda the secretary.
With the final scene between Greg Stillson and Charlie I like the fade into black and white and then starting in black and white in the next scene with Greg and then fade into color. Nice touch.
Johnnie decides not to go off on a trip. This takes Purdy off the hook for getting caught for taking Johnnie's money (assuming I'm right that Purdy did this). Of course, it makes sense for the development of the show's plot for that not to come out just yet. There is a lot that can be done between Johnnie and Purdy if they stay on good terms. This episode illustrates the possibilities in that regard.
Okay, at the end we see that it really was Washington DC that got blown up. Capitol Hill is sufficiently intact that the viewers can recognize it and the Washington Monument. But of course in a real nuclear blast that would not be the case. They could have shown that it was DC that got nuked using other methods:
• Show the city as it got nuked. Clearly show it was DC as the nuke went off.
• Show the city clearly getting nuked.
• Have some part of the Lincoln Memorial or perhaps a sign for a parking lot that shows its for Capitol Hill.
Okay, next season: Can we not have all Machiavellian Washington politics all the time? One reason some of us watch fantasy and science fiction TV shows is to escape from the never-ending coverage of politics on the news talk show. Yes producers, you could write tons of episodes of Johnnie dancing around Purdy and the Stillsons in Washington. But I'd rather see more of the Maine countryside mixed with Johnnie out saving runaway girls in trouble in small Maine cities.
I really like The Dead Zone. Shaman has got to be the trippiest episode so far. Wow. I thought it was great.
Johnnie is out in the country in Maine (beautiful country too, makes me want to go visit the place) and sees a premonition of a huge asteroid strike on a mountainside. He goes into the woods trying to figure out its angle of flight in order to be able to tell an astronomer where it was going to come from. His goal is to prove that the asteroid is coming so that people can evacuate. Along the way he meets an old man in a gas station, an astronomer, and a cop. He sees them disappear. We are led to believe that the coming asteroid strike will kill them and he starts acting like he's trying to save the lives of the people he meets in that areas.
Okay, but here's the science problem: the Earth spins around. Unless his premonition could tell him the exact date and time of the asteroid strike the angle of its incoming path is worthless knowledge. So how was he ever going to figure that out? He'd have to have a digital day/date watch to look at during the premonition.
His search for the asteroid's angle of impact eventually leads him into a forest in Maine walking up a mountain. He falls, becomes seriously injured, and in order to prevent himself from freezing that night (another premonition warns him of course) he makes his way into a cave.
The cave is where it starts to get weird. He picks up an ancient broken bone knife and suddenly sees an Indian Shaman guy from hundreds of years ago as that guy was in the cave way back then. But here's the twist: the Shaman sees him as well. And the Shaman's knife is the newer and unbroken version of the knife that Johnnie found in the cave. As long as they both hold their knives they can see each other.
But this consistency of knife holding to see the Shaman is not maintained. It gets to the point where they are no longer holding knives and they can see each other.
Johnnie says to the Shaman "I was a lousy Eagle Scout when I was a kid". Saying he was a lousy Boy Scout would have been more believeable. To get all the way to Eagle Scout requires accumulation of a large number of skills for dealing with the wilderness. So that line seems like a mistake.
He needs to stay warm. Thru hand motions he gets the Shaman to show him how to build a fire. But how can the small amount of fire wood he has be enough to keep him alive that night?
Another seeming mistake: the Shaman hands him things to hold and as Johnnie holds each one successively he has visions. But how can Johnnie touch things that the Shaman hands him? We already know that Johnnie can't feel the heat from the Shaman's fire. We get other indicators that they can't touch stuff from each other's time periods. But the need for them to touch each other's items is there. The writers just decided to ignore the inconsistency.
Was there another way to solve the need for them to touch the same items as a way to see into each other's lives? For Johnnie this could have been solved by having the Shaman leave various objects in the cave for him to find. Each successive ancient object that Johnnie picked up could have caused premonitions or flashbacks (post-monitions?). Its less clear how the Shaman could have managed to flash into Johnnie's past and futiure without being able to touch Johnnie's cane and hand.
Eventually, with Johnnie holdng the blue bird's egg, we see the Shaman as a kid falling down a hill hitting his head. The Shaman's head injury mirrors Johnnie's. He has the same capability as Johnnie. This idea of an ancient guy who has the same capability and the idea of them seeing other in each other's visions is what makes this episode unique. Its a clever idea.
In the vision Johnnie sees the Shaman as a kid seeing Johnnie in a vision after the Shaman kid suffers a head injury and Johnnie says to the shaman kid "There's still time". This becomes a key phrase that recurs in later scenes. We eventually see other scenes from the Shaman's earlier life when he saw visions of Johnnie. Finally the Shaman is coming to understand what those earlier visions meant.
When the episode nears its climax Johnnie has managed to convince the Shaman to move his tribe across the river. But then the Shaman starts showing up with the ability to speak English:
Shaman: "When we die we all sound the same"
Johnnie: "Who's dying"
Shaman: "You have to go. There's something for you to do. I've seen it."
But if the Shaman isn't dead yet and has just come back from leading his tribe across the river how can he already talk in English? We see him at the end standing at the door as the asteroid blast kills him. I guess its the point where he has gotten his tribe going across the river to flee the asteroid and he decides to return to Johnnie to convince Johnnie to wake up. At that point he's returning to a place that guarantees he'll die from the asteroid blast. So he's made the decision that will kill him and that decision could have been what gave him the ability to talk in English.
Well, he convinces Johnnie to wake and Johnnie wakes to stoke the fire to make the smoke that will cause him to be spotted by a search helicopter.
One final problem: The smoke plume is too large.
Still, a great episode in spite of its inconsistencies and weaknesses.