Fascinating Intersections

One of the reasons I look forward to the summer TV season is The Dead Zone. I should probably preface this with the fact that no, I haven't read the book. As a general rule, I don't read Stephen King. I like to sleep at night too much for that. (It's nothing against his writing - if anything, it's a compliment. Because the few pages of three of his books I've read have given me incredible nightmares that even still recur. So it just doesn't seem like good reading material for me.) Tim has read the book and he still enjoys the show. I think the thing to do with books that get made into movies and/or TV shows is to simply realize that it's going to be different and leave it at that.

Anyway. I first got hooked on The Dead Zone because of a radio interview that Anthony Michael Hall did. My first reaction was, "Anthony Michael Hall? Wasn't he the goofy kid in all those 80's movies?" Which, of course, he was. And what caught my attention is that in the radio interview, not only did he admit it, he embraced it. (And poked fun at Molly Ringwald who is too superior in her "old age" to admit that she was ever the teen queen. Whatever.) So I thought to myself that I'd give the show a try, cause I always thought he was fun in the 80's movies. Let's just say that having seen him all grown up, I'd watch the show on that merit alone. (I've watched shows for stupider reasons than really good looking leading men.) Anthony Michael Hall is living proof that the girls who dismiss the weird looking kids in high school are going to look back one day and wonder what they were thinking. (Thankfully I never suffered from that problem. And I've got goofy date pictures to prove it.)

Where was I? Oh yes, the Dead Zone. It started back up on Sunday night. And the minute Sheriff Bannerman came on the screen I grabbed the remote from Tim and said, "Hey! It's the guy from Numb3rs! It's Colby!" all the while trying frantically to rewind the recording. (Helpful hint for DVR users - the more frantic you are to just back up a little bit - i.e. one tick of the 10 second back - the more likely you are to accidentally either skip ahead 30 seconds or end up doing some key combination that gets you out of the program entirely and back on live TV. When your husband is prone to leaving live TV on the monster channel, this is prone to causing potential problems. Reference Stephen King conversation above.) After much back and forth we decided that no, they had not replaced the character with Colby. Every time Bannerman (played by Chris Bruno) was on, I squinted at the screen, still not 100% convinced that I was wrong. Though I had to agree with Tim that it was the same person as had been in the role all along.

So today, in a little lull, I hopped over to IMDb to look up the Dead Zone and scrutinize Sheriff Bannerman. Clicking on the bio, there was only one piece of trivia mentioned: brother of Dylan Bruno. Clicking on that led me over to...Colby! So the reason I was so sure it was Colby is that they're brothers (and if I could keep actor names straight in my head I would've been able to noodle that out without all this IMDbing, but hey, that's why it's there.) And it's very clear that they're brothers. Though flipping between the two, they're not as nearly identical as the Wilson boys (though hands down, the Bruno boys are way better looking than a Wilson could ever hope to be.)

[Warning - Here be spoilers, both Dead Zone and Numb3rs related.]



Anyway, this little revelation led to further pondering because both shows have left the Brunos in a bad way. Sherrif Bannerman is now dead. Colby is headed off to the big house with the whole accused of treason/spying thing. Kind of a bad year for the Bruno family. But beyond that, Dead Zone-wise, I'm left wondering what the plot of this season is going to be. See, the overarching storyline of both the book and the show has been Greg Stilson as the harbinger of the apocolypse. But Purdy killed Janus -- fascinating side note: the last episode the Colby was in on Numb3rs was called "The Janus List" -- and that freed Stilson from being the apocolyptic harbinger (Johnny even verified this when he shook his hand at Bannerman's funeral)...and now, where does the plot go? Bruce is taking a job out of town. Bannerman's dead. Purdy is a wreck and saying he's going to leave rather than try to restore Faith Heritage. It's like this first episode of the season was meant to be the series finale.

The previews for next week show the new sherrif in town opening an investigation into Walt. So they can probably string some episodes along with Johnny clearing Walt's name (or not clearing it...hard to say where they'll go at this point.) But then what? I hope they're able to turn it into a solid episodic show, but that will be a tough sell seeing as how it's really always had an overarching theme. Maybe they can come up with a new overarching plot, though I'd hate for it to go the way of Stargate SG-1, who was so desperate for bigger and better overarching plots each season that they eventually got so ridiculous and/or stupid that they ended up cancelling the series. I know that the fate of the Dead Zone was up in the air for a long time and while I didn't want it end, I also hope that it doesn't end up ridiculous.