TV Review: Surface Episode 1.09

Monday, November 21, 2005

FROM NBC: As Laura (Lake Bell) and Rich (Jay R. Ferguson) race against time in a submersible they realize the "unidentified species" are laying thousands of eggs on the ocean floor. Meanwhile, Miles (Carter Jenkins) hears a report of a vicious attack on two electricians working on a marine dock, and suspects that Nimrod may be the culprit. Elsewhere, Phil (Eddie Hassell) stakes out an underwater power cable in hopes of finding Nimrod only to discover Nimrod now has a lot of underwater friends. Ian Anthony Dale and Leighton Meester star.

My Rating:  4 out of 4

This show just keeps getting better and better with each week that passes. Last week's episode left us with a huge cliffhanger, and tonight's episode did as well. Tonight's episode opens with a Lee finding Laura, Rich and Jackson's hide out, and the sea orchid she had found. Lee and his men know they have just missed Laura, and somehow they also know they have gone down below the surface of the ocean.

We jump to just that place with Laura and Rich. We last saw their man made submersible falling down a hole in the ocean after the cable that attached them to Jackson's boat on the surface appears to have broken. They fall down to the very bottom of the ocean; landing in what we later find out is a bitching zone for the creatures. They are surrounded by hundreds of the creatures it seems, and they are all laying eggs.

Air is in short supply, and they only have about an hour left when the episode opens. They spend the episode trying to figure out a way to get the life raft attached to the top of the submersible to hatch. At first, they don't even have power to get it to do that. However, Rich is able to restore power. Even then the raft doesn't inflate because it is stuck against the bottom of the submersible with the way it landed.

It starts to look pretty grim for Laura and Rich. They are running out of air fast, and if they don’t find a way to get to the surface and quick they won't survive. After sitting there until there air is almost gone and death is inevitable, they finally decide to attract the attention of the creatures to see if they can knock them loose enough for the raft to inflate. They are successful, and the raft does take them to the ocean's surface. However, they have rough seas, and it appears Jackson and his boat is gone.

Is Jackson another victim of the creature? We do know they can grow big enough to eat a boat whole. We also know there is no sight of a boat on the surface because a distress call Laura is able to send out is picked up and sent to Lee. The man that tells Lee about says there are no boats on the surface over the location Laura gives.

Now here is my question. Why didn't Laura and Rich try to attract the attention of the creature sooner? They actually turned off the lights to avoid it early on in the episode, but with the raft being stuck against the ocean floor and air running out, they really didn't have many options open to them. They wait until the very last scene of the episode to attract a creature to jar the submersible loose and go to the surface. I guess if they had done it sooner, we wouldn't have had much of an episode.
Laura and Rich aren't the only thing happening in this episode. In one of the opening scenes we see a man killed by what appears to be Nim or another creature like him. Miles hears about the killing, and he is worried they will go after the creature in question and find Nim, but Nim we learn has been captured in a fisherman's net, and is on a boat. He causes some trouble for the fisherman, and they lock him up in the freezer. He somehow breaks the freezer, and when they find he has done that he attacks the men on the boat. They do capture him, but he shocks one and they drop the bag they placed him in and he dives back into the ocean. Somehow by the end of the episode, a much larger and angrier Nim has found his way back to Miles and his home.

However, Miles is a bit worse for wear. In an attempt to find Nim before the men looking for him do, he attracts the others like Nim and they attack him. He is able to get away though, but we now see a pack of wild creatures like Nim out in the wild, and they are killing anything they can. This is not good. Nim was at least raised somewhat by a human. This pack of creatures hasn't been, and we are now seeing what the world will be like once more creatures invade. Just last week on my media blog, I proposed the theory it was the infant creatures like Nim off on a killing spree, and it is good to know I was correct with this train of thought.

Surface is becoming a really great television show. Early episodes were a bit slow, but now the pace is picking up a bit. I really love this show and its slow development. This program is also visually enjoyable. The creature sightings are amazing, and I really can't wait to see what happens next week. Laura and Rich may have made the surface, but that is just the beginning of their journey.