Surface: Episode 4

As I sat here wondering why none of the episodes of Surface have actual titles, something hit me: this is the only show in the batch of new mystery/sci-fi shows that has a sense of wonder. Invasion tries to pass off slowness as wonder, Threshold is just pure fun sci-fi, and Supernatural and The Night Stalker are pretty much straight out horror shows (with The Night Stalker going even further into violent horror). Surface is the kind of show Spielberg would do, and while I agree that Spielberg can often ruin as many movies as he saves with that sense of wonder, here it's a very good thing.

Miles is still keeping that damn baby monster, only now it's in an unused above ground swimming pool, and a hot older friend of his sister's wants to see it (goodbye doggie!) Laura wants to figure out what's going on with the whales and their eating/migration patterns, and Rich's wife brings him to the doctor to see why he's having visions of dead brother George calling to him. I'm truly wondering (there's that word again) where all of these plots are going, and it's to the writers/producers credit that they aren't bringing the three different plots together (yet anyway) in some big let's-get-together-and-save-the-world scenario. This is one smart show.

Miles' sister knows about the monster he's keeping and tries to blackmail him, but Miles has some blackmail material of his own, and if I'm not mistaken, it's pictures of his sister having oral sex with her boyfriend ("That's quite a birthday gift you gave your boyfriend" - ha!). Meanwhile, Rich refuses to take the doc's meds and instead is putting up tons of pictures around the house, like he got a new Spirograph for Xmas and going nuts with the water outside of his home, all sort of Richard Dreyfuss-from-Close Encounters-like, causing him to lose his job and his wife, at least for now. Laura finds dead whales, and the government is still trying to figure out where these monsters came from and keeping track of the changes the monsters are doing to the atmosphere and environment.

For the first time tonight I started to think about what the show's endgame is. And then it hit me: these things are going to hit land at some point (probably during sweeps week in November or the season finale in May). And that's going to be cool as hell. Right now it's a rather low-key, realistic show with shocking touches here and there (the monster eating the ship whole, the boat caught in the whirlpool, all the dead calamari on the beach, etc) to liven things up, so when they go all out with the monsters-invading-the-cities special effects and action, that's going to be amazing. But even if it doesn't go that route, just the fact that they have me looking forward to what happens next week and the week after that and November and then May...well, they're doing something very, very right.