TV Review: Surface Episode 1.11

Monday, January 02, 2006

FROM NBC: Rich (Jay R. Ferguson) and Laura (Lake Bell) sneak out of the hospital with the creature footage before Lee (Ian Anthony Dale) and his men can get to them. Upon their successful escape Rich and Laura take the exclusive footage to tape to a copying service company in an effort to upload it onto the internet and convince a news station to run a piece about the footage. Meanwhile, Miles (Carter Jenkins) is sad and defeated while he watches doctors preparing to perform an autopsy on Nim but that all changes when Nim sneezes and they realize he is still alive. TV-PG

My Rating: 4 out of 4

Well, its back! Surface returns for now anyway. It looks like we have four episodes left to a season finale, which if I'm correct in my thinking should happen right before the Winter Olympics get underway next month. Tonight's episode ended with another cliffhanger and was definitely full of surprises.

Let's go back a bit first though. The series had gone on a break for the holidays following November sweeps. Rich and Laura had gone down to the bottom of the ocean to capture footage of the sea creatures. While down there, the line they had connecting to them to their boat snapped, sending them to the bottom of the ocean, further down then anyone had gone down before. At 5,000 feet, they found a pod of the creatures and their birthing ground. They filmed footage of the creatures and soon found a way to get their home made submersible back to the surface. That wasn't the end of their troubles though. They were stranded adrift in the ocean. They were eventually rescued, and that's where we left them.

This episode picks up with them in Seaside, Oregon, as they are being taken to the hospital. Laura has the tape held in her grasp, and once the news footage of them is released, those looking for them are hot on their trail. Laura and Rich escape from the hospital just in time, and they find a way to get the footage burned onto DVD and streaming online. The power of the Internet puts the footage live to the world. The creature is no exposed.

Next, Laura uses her contacts at a news station in San Jose to expose the footage even further. NBC picks it up, and the story ends up on MSNBC, both on cable and on their website. The story about American Nessie is turned into a bit of a joke once Laura's credentials, or lack of them at the moment, are exposed. They make the discovery lighter than the seriousness of it. However, this might have also worked in her favor.

How many times has what a news anchor said negative about a topic made you want to look at it even more? This might have happened here in this series because when Rich goes to look at the website containing the download of the video, the download count is growing by leaps and bounds. People are talking about it. We have trouble for Laura and Rich it looks like though. The episode ends with some men showing up at her door. They look very much like the people that have been after them for the span of the season. The last thing we see is Laura's hand on the door handle. Definitely like making us want rip our hair out don't they?

Now what about Nim and Miles? Miles had been attacked by a pod of infant creatures, and he had been doing worse and worse health wise. Savannah had brought Nim to the hospital, and he is discovered. Before he goes on the run, he heals Miles, and Miles wakes up just as we hear a gunshot. An officer has shot Nim, and he appears to be dead. However, when tonight's episode begins, we clearly see that Nim is far from dead. In fact, he is very much alive.

However, this poses more problems for the small creature. Those at the aquarium decided to start experimenting on the creature. Miles wants to put Nim back into the ocean, but the scientists quickly veto this idea. At first, Miles is given much access to Nim, but as the episode progresses this access is lessened. Soon Miles is not allowed in the aquarium at all after a late night swim in the aquarium wit Nim and what turns out to be the daughter of one of the scientists is discovered. In another development here, it appears Miles and Nim are now somehow connected. Once Nim healed Miles, something appears to have changed in Miles. At the end of the episode, we see Miles has the same electric personality Nim has, on a smaller scale. This will certainly makes things quite interesting in the episodes to come.

I'm really happy to see this show back. Surface is one of my favorite series this season, and the only thing that bothers me here is that we only have four episodes left. I want this series to go past that and into May. I know NBC has the Olympics coming next month, but that doesn't mean this show can't go on another hiatus and return in March. I wonder what this series has in store for us in the month to come. This episode definitely peeked my interest.