TV Review: Surface Episode 1.12

Monday, January 09, 2006

FROM NBC: Laura (Lake Bell) and Rich (Jay R. Ferguson) become fugitives and are being pursued by Lee (Ian Anthony Dale) and his legion of secret agents. While hiding out, Laura has a bizarre Internet exchange with a mysterious person who claims to have information about the origin of the creatures. Meanwhile, Miles (Carter Jenkins) and Caitlin go to a bonfire party at the beach and are stunned when two of her friends mysteriously disappear after a late-night swim. The next day the Coast Guard makes a grisly discovery. Leighton Meester also stars.

My Rating: 4 out of 4

Well, this series has certainly taken an extremely strange turn with tonight's episode. Events in tonight's episode were only hinted at in last week's previews, but the hints we were given are far surpassed this week and things were only suspected have now turned into reality. Last week's episode ended with us waiting for Laura to open the door to the hotel room her and Rich are sharing for the mysterious fax that has come out of nowhere. Somehow Rich jumps out of the shower and is dressed in enough time to stop her from opening the door.

No fax awaits them on the other side of the door. Instead, it is a group of Lee's men. With some quick figuring, Laura and Rich are able to avoid the men, and get out of the room. However, one of the men manages to follow them to the stairwell. Rich goes into action, telling Laura to go ahead without him. We stay with Laura, but we can certainly hear something happening, and the blood on Rich's shirt when he returns to her is certainly a clue that he wasn't asking the man for cookie recipes!

They are able to get away from the hotel, and the identification Rich took from the man after them tells them they have a government agency after them. He also has the man's gun. Laura and Rich make their way to her reporter friend, and the story has broken wide open. However, the two are now fugitives. Laura logs onto her laptop to read her email, and when she finds one that has the picture of the mysterious sea orchid Cerko had left her to find, she replies.

This opens the door to contact from a strange and mysterious voice through her computer. Someone who wants to help her, and can even see Laura and Rich via satellite in some way - freaky. They only wish to see the DNA samples she has of the creature. In a show of good faith, the mysterious voice leads them to the library where Rich and Laura find cash, debit cards and new identification to use.

There is also a phone, and this device is used to contact Laura and Rich. This time the voice wants to meet face to face and see the samples. Laura is given little choice in the matter, so a meeting is set up. However, she needs her ex to pick up the actual samples from where she has left them at Berkeley. This leads to a tense meeting between Laura and her ex that doesn't go all that well.

It does lead Laura to her meeting with the mysterious voice, whom she has named Mr. Big. When Rich and Laura arrive at the designated meeting point, the contact only wants Laura. Rich wants no part of that, but Laura decides to go anyway. The contact whisks her off blindfolded by plane. When she arrives at their destination, she quickly figures out Mr. Big is actually not Mr. but Mrs. Big, and it is the very woman that picked her up. As Laura shows the woman the samples she has collected, the two talk and we learn some startling information about the origin of the creatures.

It turns out the creatures aren't alien or some thought to be extinct creature living at the bottom of our ocean depths, but the creature is actually man-made and designed for some unknown reason. When Laura questions the woman, she says they made it because they could. Interesting development, and one that really wasn't all that expected from the events earlier on in the season. The possibility the creature had been designed only has come up in recent episodes, and it truly does open the doors to so many other possibilities, and it explains why the government is trying to hard to keep this creature under wraps.

Not only did we have these weird developments, Miles also had some strange occurrences as well. It seems more and more he is changing since his encounter and healing from the creatures. Small changes were noticed last week, and there are even more this week. Seems we also have a heightening of activity of the creatures off the coast, and this leads to the death of two teenagers swimming out at a party Miles and his new girlfriend attend.

We also learn the next day that while the creatures had been acting out in the ocean, Nim had also been acting out in his aquarium. Miles is called in to calm the creature down, and Nim immediately goes to him. One of the last scenes we see of Miles and Nim is them both going out of control, Miles at home in his bathroom and Nim is his cell. Once this happens, Miles is upset, and the next day when Caitlin tries to get him to talk, he kisses her and somehow something grows from his hands and sticks to her face. That was weird! And this is where they leave us for the week.

This episode of Surface was interesting but confusing. However, the confusion only made this episode even better. I'm not sure what will happen next when it comes to this series. The developments of this week's episode certainly throws things out of whack, but something seems to do that every week when it comes to this series. Surface truly likes to keep us guessing on a weekly basis, and I'm curious to see how the rest of this season plays out. No new episode of Surface next week. NBC will be airing its coverage of The Golden Globe awards.