The DSR 1x03 'Demons'

by A.J. Black

Ethan is left distraught when an old friend and CIA agent is killed in capturing a criminal in Panama who has psychic abilities, who begins torturing Ethan’s mind from his prison cell...

Back with The DSR then, and hoping for this promising show to start unlocking some of its potential and start moving away from being an Alias spin-off. While I had my issues with the first two episodes, I can see great things for this show once it nails down its characterisation and develops its own sense of style, so let's see what 'Demons' brings us, in an Ethan-centric episode.

Opening in a bar in Panama that seems to be Bad Guy Central, where we meet Ritchie and Falen who would appear to be our Guest Villains. Ethan's there too, keeping an eye on things, but when Ritchie follows him into the restrooms we discover Ritchie is an inside man, and in my experience that suggests he'l be dead inside the next three pages. He may as well be wearing a red shirt! A slightly clunky 'Six months undercover is no picnic' line sets the scene here - it's a big operation and the ever-impatient Ethan wants to close the deal. Ethan hints that there's more to Falen than meets the eye, but as Ritchie retakes his seat it's clear Falen is on to him. Ethan's strike team gather outside, ready to move, but to Ethan's horror the ice cool Falen orders Ritchie to pull his own gun and shoot himself - which he does! Falen is caught as the strike team pile in, but the 'abilities' Ethan mentioned earlier have just been demonstrated with sadly fatal consequences. I'll refrain from making another Redshirt comment...

Act I has Sawyer - sorry, Jai - meeting the others as Ethan gets chewed out by Kendall. So he sanctioned the op himself, eh? That's an odd thing for the typically protocol-conscious Ethan to do, and suggests his beef with Falen goes back some way if he was prepared to risk his career to get him. Ethan's snappish remark about Jai tells us he's clearly frustrated with the double standard Kendall seems to be applying to the team, but he can't help looking like a naughty schoolboy as Kendall dismisses him. At Ritchie's funeral, however, Ethan sees a vision of Falen watching him, and the guilt over Ritchie's death is clearly weighing heavy on his conscience. Ethan sees Falen again as he tries to avoid Ritchie's family, and realises at last that he's going to have to face his demons and pay Falen a visit if he's to have any hope of getting closure on all this. Ethan pays a visit to Falen at a maximum security prison in Virginia, trying to get a rise out of Falen by taunting him, but Falen's cool silence turns the tables on Ethan and it's him who starts losing his cool. He's clearly rattled by Falen as he leaves - looks like we're in for a long standoff here!

With Falen still haunting Ethan, Act II opens with news that Falen's smuggling operation has moved into organ trafficing, and with the homeless population of Mexico targeted as unwilling donors it's down to the DSR team to cut off the head of the operation by bringing down its new leader, Hector Certez. Anton speaks to Ethan after the briefing, commenting on Ethan's loss (although this does lead to some slightly cheesy dialogue) but making an interesting point - has Ethan been feeling sidelined since Jai was given control of the team, and could this have been affecting his judgement? Carson puts in a request to study Falen, mentioning that she feels the DSR's focus has shifted from research to field work lately, and as she's given Anton and Sara to help we switch scenes to Mexico City. The show's central double act, Jai and Mia, are busy infiltrating Certez's compound when they see Certez talking to a mysterious figure described as 'every inch the Shaman.' That line stuck out for me - it's not exactly a very vivid description and jars the scene a little bit. Jai and Mia make it into Certez's office and are getting hold of data from his computer remotely, with Ethan waiting outside to run fake biographies to fool Certez's security system. He's distracted at the last moment by a set of visions that throw him off whack, and to everyone's alarm he fails to set up Jai and Mia's cover stories before the security system clocks them as US government employees. Oops.

Act III opens with our duo rumbled by Certez, but after some gunplay and a neat little fight sequence, they're back out into the wider world and running for their skins. Back at PBH, Jai gets a chance to do something he's always wanted - chew out Ethan! It's another role reversal and a good example of how much Ethan's screwed up here. Ethan watches the angry conversation and we get another hint at Mia's past with a seemingly throwaway remark - the girl's got a lot of layers to get through yet. Good stuff. Makes for a more rounded protagonist, because we know that in time we'll start seeing those layers get peeled back and her motivations will be revealed at last! I hope. Over in Sara's lab, after Carson puts on the Exposition Hat so Black can get across the way DSR approaches psychic abilities (and nicely done too - I always appreciate a little effort going into grounding supernatural elements of a show into reality), Sara hypothesises that Falen's psychic powers could be genetically engineered. A GM bad guy? And here was me thinking they were going to stop with potatoes. Of course, Sara thinks Falen's involvment in LSD trials in the 80s was the probably cause, so now we have a raver for a bad guy. Rah. Certez has been tracked down to Chile, where he's hanging out with his buddy the shaman, so the DSR crew have to go in and finish the job Ethan ballsed up for them earlier - and Ethan's not invited. Ethan suffers some more disturbing dreams, but he knows where to go to tackle the problem this time - Falen. Falen creepily tells Ethan he's going to put him through some hell, and to be honest it looks like Ethan's pretty screwed. Anybody wound up as tight as he is doesn't take much picking to pull apart, and Falen knows that. So let's gear up for the freak out! I think I can hear 'White Rabbit' starting to play in the background...

Act IV brings us Carson going to see Dr. Hinds, the man behind the drug trials that may have created Falen's powers, but the cuddly old man she meets is a long step from the mad scientist we were expecting. What's more, seems that Hinds knows Carson, or at least her father, so he may be the innocent party in all this after all. And there's more backstory here - how great a plot device is the word 'unpleasantness'? There's some bad stuff in Carson's past about her dad. Goody - future character development! Go team. Hinds tells Carson to drop it, but seems like he's more afraid of Falen finding out than anything else. Over in Chile, our double team of Jai and Mia give us a good character moment with Jai - everybody's obviously rushing to defend Ethan's actions and bringing up the loss of Rithcie, but Jai's finding it hard to feel sympathy given the circumstances of his induction into the DSR - and why should he? It's a valid point, and well made too. As they look in on Certez's hideout and find a voodoo ritual about to take place, Kendall receives some alarming news - Falen has broken out and it looks like Ethan helped! The voodoo ritual is in full Temple Of Doom mode before Jai helpfully blows away the shaman, and just as the DSR team get things under control - Ethan shows up, a gun pressed to Mia's head!

Woah, woah, hang on. Falen was imprisoned in Virginia, right? That's a fair way away from Chile. It's a bit of a stretch to say that Ethan and Falen have escaped from maximum security and gotten down to Chile in the short time he's been free, let alone been in a quote unquote 'remote mountainous village' in time to ambush the DSR squad! Hmm. The thing about time lapses like this in scripts is they can sometimes feel very contrived, especially if they happen too close together, so while it may be possible, I'm afraid I must hereby thwack this script with the Plot Hole Stick.

Thing is, back in the action there's another great moment as Falen sneers at Jai, telling him that it was easy to bend Ethan to his will - he just exploited Ethan's loathing of Jai and used it to manipulate him. It's spoilt a little by a slightly camp last minute save from Mia, tackling Falen and shooting him, leaving the shattered Ethan to recover. There's a nicely creepy moment as it's clear Falen's ghost is hanging around for a bit yet just to close the episode off.

Right! I'm getting behind on my reviews so let's get cracking on summing this chap up then. While 'Demons' is a much more solid episode than the two openers, with a more believeable premise, good focus on character development, a worthy guest villain and less of the typecasting problems that hindered the last two shows, it really does shoot itself in the foot with that Act IV moment where Ethan and Falen show up. I may be missing something and I'll admit my geography isn't great, but it just feels like getting Ethan to the village in Chile in the timeframe given isn't plausible, so we're left with a deus ex machina to bring about the pivotal moment of the episode, and that always bugs me. There's a fair few typos, missing words and grammatical errors here, too, that suggests a lack of proof-reading before the script went to air. It's not a big deal, admittedly, but it saps a little atompshere from a script when you spot errors like that, so it's something I'd advise the DSR team to watch out for in the future. That said, this is, as I just commented, a much more solid episode all round, and signs of more good things to come. DSR's still got a lot to learn but it seems to be learning fast.

ZPM RATING: