This Friday on 'TR 2070' ep 12 'Brightness Falls'

When I read the episode's premise involving David's meeting his father, who thought the nursing home management was spying on him, I thought that started making little sense. Wasn't it established in a dialogue between David and Calley in the beginning of the season that there were so few crimes because, indeed, some personal liberties were cast aside and people were something like watched 24/7? And considering Tyler Hume is old and helpless, then wouldn't it be one more reason to keep an eye on him? In fact, the home should be commended for that.

But, OK, Tyler didn't have to like it, and taking away his stuff and then denying it would not be a cool thing to do, if that, in fact, were happening. It turns out the crazy old man was indeed crazy and that sort of worked as a twist, because I was expecting some foul play there.

Anyway, the whole David's father story seemed rushed and underdeveloped to me, more like an excuse to let us know David has a father and to include Olivia in the story just because, you know, she's Olivia and needs something to do. She's hot, even her Daivd's father notices that, but not much of a sitter for the elderly, since she fell asleep on the job!

By the way, when Tyler complimented Olivia's looks, I thought the best line David could have said was...

Tyler - "She's really beautiful. Almost as beautiful as your mother."
David - "Gee, thanks dad. I'm sure whenever I admire Olivia's looks its Mother I want to think about."

As for the Cult case itself, well, not much to say. The best way for us to feel good about ourselves is to criticize other people's religion, especially when the writers put together a bunch of absurd rules with dangerous results.

I thought the part in which hey show Matthew fantasizing about a "perfect" 1950s aitcom family was funny and unexpected, but I've got some issues with that whole scene.
- How does it work exactly? Rekall clients have zero privacy? Technicians can watch your fantasies along with you while they eat a hot-dog, snigger, and make silly jokes to one another?
- Can the police simply watch these fantasies as they happen without any suggestion of a warrant, even when looking for potentially incriminating evidence of a crime that the suspect would be producing against himself? Well, that sends us back with the privacy issue I began this review with...
- If the answer to these questions is a big YES, then, knowing that his fantasies would be seen by others whether he liked them or not, couldn't Matthew just have fabricated the whole thing precisely to fool the CPB? couldn't he have been planning the murder for months so ordered a 1950s Rekall experience just knowing that would be evidence of his good personality later, when in fact all he wanted was blood and mayhem?

The resolution missed the little chance the show had to add a little action to the episode, and was even more action-less than the final confrontations usually are in the show.

I'm sure the show is going to improve, but it wasn't this time yet! Let's keep our fingers crossed for next week!

This week's episode gets 4 objects that will be popular in 2070: 4 self-winding watches.

Well, we’re back to the procedural this week. Last week’s events and the search for Farve’s creator are all forgotten. Not a problem for me. But I do remember once on another website someone complaining about THE X-FILES that one week they’d be doing their major saga story, and then the next week they’d be in Bumsrush, Arkansas chasing a swamp monster.

Anyway, no swamp monsters in this story but a religious cult whose leader is murdered. This cult reminds me of the so-called “Church” of Scientology who believes that we are the descendants of some alien invasion centuries ago. By comparison, this cult called Level Four presented here is a little saner. They practice celibacy and meditation. However, the cult leader has six wives (although to be fair, we are told he only has sex with one at a time.) And one of his wives practices “tantric yoga” with another member, which is just code for slow-motion sex. In the end - no real surprise - it turns out the cult leader’s first wife is the killer. Clearly, she thought of this cult as something real when she co-founded it with her husband, but he turned it into his own funhouse, even buying an unrelated sarcophagus device that nearly gets one female killed. (It might have been one of the wives; I’m not sure.) Our guys - Farve and Moralez, that is, as Hume is called away - save almost all the other members from being electrocuted by their meditation devices – a plan to purge out all the unworthy ones (aka all those that aren’t wife #1.)

I suppose the fact that the cult leader was collecting artifacts unrelated to Level Four is the reason wife #1 “crucified” her husband, since crucifixion had no even symbolic value to L4. But first off, he was hung upside down, which is very rare in a crucifixion. Further, it’s a very slow painful and messy process that would be an unlikely method to use to kill someone in secret. It was just stuck in there for religious shock value, though it barely elicited a reaction from anyone.

We do learn a little background that they passed some sort of Religious Freedom ruling called the Home Worship Act in 2037 that allowed any place of worship – even a home - to be a sanctuary where the law can investigate but can’t force you to go downtown until they actually arrest you. That didn’t seem to have any real relevance either, except an excuse for everyone to stick around after a murder had been committed. It might have been more exciting if they ruled that any “place of worship” was a true sanctuary, and that Moralez and Farve had to pull some clever scam (like a gas leak or a bomb threat) to trick wife #1 into leaving the place so they could nab her. Oh, and Rekall did slip into this episode, as the cult leader’s son would sneak out there to live a phony idealized version of his life where he was the center of attention in a happy family.

There’s a nice backstory though about Hume having to visit his father in a nursing home. Played very well by Anthony Zerbe, he is suffering from paranoia and some loss of memory. In one memorable scene he laments that they have stolen old letters from his wife, only to have Hume remind him that he gave them to him for safekeeping before entering the facility. At one point he tells David he’s blessed to have married such a beautiful woman. For a moment, it seems like either a creepy flattery or a complaint about his own wife. But then he concludes it with, “She’s almost as beautiful as your mother was,” turning it into the touching compliment it was meant to be. There’s also a nice scene at the end where David reads a novel to his father that reminds him of the life he once lived. (At first, I thought it might be some classic novel, but then he mentions “nuclear winter,” so I guess not.)

Anyway, that was the highlights for me this week. I’d give the cult story a five, but I’ll add in extra for the father/son storyline bringing it up to 7 belt buckles, which clever androids can use to jam sarcophagus gears until they have time to blast them with something better.

I thought this week was very interesting indeed. We learnt a little bit of what went on in the world leading up to 2070.
At the end when Hume is reading to his father the passage mentions "nuclear winter" earlier we discovered that corporations wanted to rebuild the world but really intended taking it over. So a nuclear holocaust presumably took place maybe sometime around 2030.
That's just a bit of guesswork but seems to explain how Rekall and Minacon got so powerful.
The cult plot was this weeks main story ,and it was pretty good. Most interesting case for sometime,I like a good whodunit and level4 scenario was nicely written. Favre watching tantric yoga made me smile, by the next scene he had worked out it was plain old sex .
All in all a vast improvement on last week.
8/10

Okay, in this episode Farve and Hume investigate a murder at cult/religion called L4 that is sort of like a modern Church of Scientology. It's not much of a religion or cult as all the people do is mediate and refrain from sex and various artificial stimulants. It actually sounds more like a Detox center with wacky robes. The celibacy is not complete as the leader actually has 6 wives. They never really explain why this is permissible. The leader is the person that was murdered which makes Hume think there is a jealousy dynamic involved.

Hume interviews the attractive "Ashley" played by Kristen Booth who is the second wife and becomes the chief suspect because they leader was only having sex with his youngest wife. The leader's non believing violent movie loving son is also a suspect. The leader's wacky overzealous wife is also a suspect. Hume and Farve then spend the next 10 minutes doing basic police work around the sect when the youngest wife is found trapped in a sarcophagus. There's a cool scene of Farve and Hume saving her life from being crushed alive. It was an interesting twist that nobody could have predicted. The episode was rolling along until for some unknown reason they diverted into a B story about David's dad in a nursing home?? Did they run out of material so they had to pad things?? David's dad's nursing story has nothing to do with the main plot but it does reintroduce David's smoking hot wife back into the story.

With Hume away at the nursing home Farve does some investing and follows the son to an actual Recall center. I almost forgot that this show was actually called "Total Recall" because of how infrequently it's brought up. Anyway the leader's son wild fantasy is to be in a sit com from the 1950's. He's then taken off the suspect list.

Now everything is turned toward Ashley as the prime suspect. Hume comes in as Farve is watching Ashley have tantric sex with the new leader. Hume and Farve confront her and deduce that she isn't the murderer which leaves the old wife as the suspect. There's a bit of a stand off in the meditation chamber but things end peacefully as they take the old wife into custody.

Random thoughts:

*I think this is the first episode where Olan is out of the lab

*They had some of the hottest Canadian actresses on this show as Kristen Booth appeared in this episode. I'm surprised there weren't more nude scenes considering this was a showtime series.

*The part with the son was kind of comical, why didn't they actually use "Recall" more often on this show????

*I really don't get the point of the Nursing Home subplot. I would have like to have all the attention and more back story about the cult/religion.

*David dropped a lot of F-boms in this episode for some reason.

Not a bad episode moved pretty quickly, I give it a 7 out of 10.