Sanpaco's Episode Reviews

Pilot: 10/10
Leviathan: 7/10
Inga Fossa: 9/10
Kein Ausgang: 10/10
Reunion: 8/10
The Three Percenters: 10/10
Manus Domini: 8/10
Cincinnati: 10/10
Camera Obscura: 9/10
Overall: 8.88/10


Pilot

This Pilot episode sucks you right into the show very quickly. The episode starts with a battle sequence in which Hobbes saves his best friend Waters' life. As the episode continues we learn that Hobbes has returned home and is engaged to be married. Because of this he plans to leave the service and settle down in California. He is however called on one last mission to which he remains extremely suspicious even after he is told that he is going to enter a virtual reality world created by the pentagon with the purpose of simulating war games. He is told his mission is to enter the game and find a man named Santiago and kill him. As he is watching the orientation video, the video suddenly cuts off and Hobbes wanders out to find out what is up. He quickly realizes that he has entered the game and is immediately running for his life. The rest of the episode is full of action and mystery as he is healed mysteriously by a woman who does not talk, finds that his fiancée's virtual counterpart is married to his best friend, Waters, who is one of Santiago's right-hand men. Hobbes also gains an unlikely companion in Michael Pinnocchio who robs him of his wedding ring minutes after entering Harsh Realm and continuously threatens to eat Hobbes' dog, Dexter. The episode also features two well known cameos for fans of Carter's other more popular shows The X-Files and Millennium. Lance Henricksen (Frank Black) plays the general and the voice doing the orientation video is none other than Gillian Anderson (Dana Scully). Very entertaining episode which sets the show up very well for a wide variety of opportunities. This being the first (and only really) attempt by Chris Carter of a solely SciFi non Horror show, I thought he did a great job and I was excited to see more. 10 out of 10.


Leviathan

This episode has possibly one of the most memorable teasers to any show I've ever seen. The use of the song "Run On" by Moby brings a great effect. The story has to do with a small group of bounty hunters who are after Pinnocchio and one of his friends. When Pinnocchio is captured, Hobbes goes after him to save him. I have a serious problem with Hobbes after watching this episode. He is definitely an emotional thinker. After letting his dog wander off and enter into the house of the bounty hunters which he is staking out, Hobbes hears him whimpering and instead of planning some way to get him back, he sprints through the front door and ends up getting captured himself. The bounty hunter makes a deal with Santiago to hand over the prisoners but due to the wits and skill of Florence and the overcoming good of the girl bounty hunter, the group is able to escape. I liked the episode but other than the teaser most of it was not too memorable. 7 out of 10.


Inga Fossa

Inga Fossa is to Harsh Realm what Deep Throat was to X-Files. The character, masterfully played by Sarah-Jane Redmond (Lucy Butler to Millennium fans) is a mysterious lady. We saw her in the previous episode in the real world telling Sophie that Hobbes is still alive. We then see her again in Harsh Realm as one of Santiago's leading ladies. It is not quite certain who she is working for although it appears, and we want to believe, that she is on the side of our heroes. Sophie follows Inga one day believing that she knows more than she is telling and to make sure she is going to deliver a message to Hobbes. We learn here that Inga, like Santiago, also has a way to enter and leave Harsh Realm as she pleases. Most likely the same portal is used by both. Meanwhile, Hobbes and Pinnocchio have decided to find this portal which is to them only a rumor by breaking into Santiago's headquarters. Hobbes is able to find this room however, he is convinced by Inga Fossa to stay and finish his mission of destroying Santiago. Inga's motives are not clear at all. She is mysterious indeed. It is not even clear whether or not Hobbes would have been able to escape if he had chosen to due to a special security clearance needed to use the portal. There was a lot of story being setup in this episode that could have been of X-Files caliber and I'm sad we never got to find it out. One part of this episode had some potential for coolness but in the end disappointed me. This is the zip fights. The cages they kept the zip fighters in were out of control when they were inside them as if there were rabid wild animals inside yet when they finally come out to actually fight they don't do anything. I've seen fights after school with more testosterone than that. 9 out of 10.


Kein Ausgang

Kein Ausgang is another of the better episodes from this short lived series. Hobbes and Pinnocchio go in search of a man who is said to have gotten the closest to killing Santiago in the spot where the man is said to have disappeared. During their search they inadvertently wander through a glitch that brings them into a beta-testing section of Harsh Realm. An area where battle scenarios are repeating endlessly on loop. The day-that-repeats=on=end plot has been extremely done in the SciFi world but it rarely fails to entertain me. The characters run into a man who has been trapped in this area for so long he can't remember. They set about finding a way out and are able to find one in the end. This is a great episode. 10 out of 10.


Reunion

Reunion is a decent enough episode that deals with Hobbes trying to find his mother in Harsh Realm. Interesting philosophical and spiritual questions about Harsh Realm come up in this episode as Mrs. Hobbes is on her death bed in both Harsh Realm and the real world. All throughout the episode both the real and virtual characters allude to things that happen in the other world happening in their dreams. At the moment of her death, Hobbes on one end and Sophie on the other are able to see each other through her eyes. This part of the episode while touching is somewhat slow at parts and kind of takes away from the idea of the concentration camp and the trackers. Plus the part of the warden is played by a great actor. Man that skullbug thing is gross. 8 out of 10.


The Three Percenters

Oh my gosh what a creepy episode. Three Percenters is your "typical" podpeople-Jonestowners-cannibalistic-brainwashed cult episode if there ever was one. Hobbes and friends are in search of a missing group of Republican Guards in hopes of stealing their supplies. Waters and his men are in search of the same crew suspecting them to be deserters. Hobbes and friends find these men first but don't find any of their supplies and strangely, the men are completely non-violent. They take them back to their camp where a non-violent cult is living and offers them food. "Ya das meets gut!" Luckily Pinnocchio suspects something creepy going on and keeps them from eating. Soon however all three of them are taken to a lake which creates a digital copy of them and then the cult of copies lock the originals in cages to be fed to passersby as bait. Ugh this is so terrible and disgusting. I love it! I give this episode an easy 10 out of 10.


Manus Domini

Manus Domini is a pretty enjoyable episode if you like dramatic plots that make you think. The episode starts out with Florence booking across the woods at breakneck speeds and Hobbes and Pinnocchio struggling as hard as they can to keep up. As they pursue they wander into a mine field and Pinnocchio has his leg blown off. While both are unconscious Pinnocchio is taken away by a group of healer women, the same group that Florence used to be a part of before she left. Hobbes is left in the field only to wake up and find himself confronted by a soldier of the Republican Guard. As they fight they roll over another mine. After a long stalemate Hobbes finally convinces the soldier to work with him so that they can both get out of their predicament. Meanwhile, Pinnocchio is healed by the women other than his leg and Florence is captured by a bounty hunter trying to find the entire group in order to take them back to Santiago. Pinnocchio goes through an emotional and spiritual journey as Hobbes and the soldier go through their own experience and he decides to protect the group of women from the bounty hunter, missing leg or not. He develops a very close relationship with one particular healer and after the fighting is over she gives her life in order to restore his leg. It is an emotional episode and if you can look past the ridiculousness that restoring a leg takes an entire life of energy it is a good episode. It did make me think about the question of whether God would have any influence over the game which was created by man and I decided that it makes perfect sense that He would because the game is still in the world over which He has dominion. I give it an 8 out of 10.


Cincinnati

This could have ended the show if the crew had know a little bit sooner that they were being canceled. Cincinnati is all about Santiago and is the most extensive glimpse we get into his character the entire series. Our heroes setup a trap for Santiago and almost capture him but instead he infiltrates a Native American terrorist group under disguise and is able to in the end take out the leader. Terry O'Quinn's performance in this series as Santiago is one of the better roles I have ever seen him in. He plays a ruthless man who appears to be sane and reasonable up until that moment when you suddenly realize that he is utterly insane. His performance alone makes this episode a perfect 10.


Camera Obscura

Harsh Realm got the announcement that it was being canceled in the middle of shooting this episode. That goes to show the dedication of the crew that they finished the episode and did a great job on it even though they knew it would never be aired. Hobbes and Pinnocchio are hired as mercenaries to protect a man and his family in post-nuclear holocaust New York. They soon find out that the two groups fighting are two families stuck in a feud over the federal reserve bank said to hold one third of the world's gold value. There is your typical Romeo and Juliet story in the episode but there also is an unlikely character in the priest who has been disfigured by the nuclear blast who can supposedly see the future. However, he uses this ability as a way to keep the families fighting so that he won't end up alone. In the end the families are able to realize this and they find out that the gold is radio active so they all decide to leave. The final scene is interesting as the final scene for the show. I'm not sure if it was written specifically in response to being canceled but it works well. Hobbes and Pinnocchio have a small exchange in which Hobbes tells Pinnocchio that he is stuck with him. We then see the priest in the street yelling at everyone "Don't leave me like this!" I enjoyed the episode but its nothing amazing. I give it an 8 out of 10.

http://sanpacoblog.blogspot.com