That was my point, too. The doorbell seemed like such an obvious misdirect.

Danny gets on his walkie. I assume, and maybe I'm taking a gigantic mental leap, here, that the house is otherwise covered, and the walkie was to cover the back.

But then wouldn't someone have radioed them to warn them that someone was coming to the door?

But then wouldn't someone have radioed them to warn them that someone was coming to the door?

Maybe. But then we'd miss that scene.

I'm a bit late in on this. I just got back from gathering folks...err, people...folks-y people and people-y folks...to watch the episode with. I really dug this episode, perhaps my favorite so far. But the good news...my people also dug the hell out of it. Laughing at the good jokes (all of them). Going "ooh, damn" at the "ooh, damn" moments. My friend went home and set up season pass on his tivo, even. It only took 3 episodes to get people I know into it.

Questions/things I wouldn't mind seeing: Are we always going to resolve an episode with some kind of FBI Swat action? That's two in a row.

I wouldn't have minded if that guy had gotten away. He was really good.

Oooh, and also, was that actually a picture of Rachel when she was a kid?

OMWF, cat named Angel. Hee. I enjoyed all the funny bits. It's a nice contrast to the creepy. And the guest stars were fantastic!

The way Prefiler talked about Web made me think there might be a history there. That respect? admiration? wasn't based on something that would come from searchable files.

Yeah, there definitely was that sense of respect. But, I think it was more out of he realized what Web does. He respects that. I keep getting the sense that Web, while up to dark things, is up to somethign super sinister. The man's got a little Arvin Sloan of Alias in him, me thinks.

Really good episode. Loved the humour, Mel's ownership of "pre-filer", Danny's gun tutorial. And even if it didn't make sense that all 4 of them went to the door, it looked great. "Once More with Feeling", "Angel", nice. More Wonderfalls alumni making appearances?

Hey, this time they held their guns in low ready position!

Uh, that's all I got so far.

Point is, I guess, serial killer who targets future serial/multiple victim killers before they ever do anything, really.

No, I know, the point is clear. Which is why I said the bit about my being annoying. What with the nitpicking.

Hmph. I picked that same nit, and it was jarring. It would be a huge distinction to an FBI unit. Serial Killers don't profile the same as mass murderers. "It's a totally different vibe."

In fact, of the three cases presented at the beginning you had one classic serial killer, one mass murder/spree killer and one domestic violence murder/suicide type.

Those are all completely distinct and to lump them together was roughly as jarring as a musican cited as an authority saying, "Yeah, he was listening to REO Speedwagon - totally punk rock" or a college professor citing the great german poet Emily Dickinson.

Also, no FBI agent (or law enforcement agent anywhere) is going to drop their weapon in a standoff. That's verboten down to the roots of their hair and into their DNA. That's conceding control of the situation and basically ensuring your own death.

(I mean you could do a story about that because obviously humans do all kinds of shit, but it's a massive breach of training and protocol and should be treated that way.)

Aside from those elements jerking me out of the story, I really liked it.

I yelled "Wonderfalls Nun!" when I saw her. (Though I also mistakenly IDed her as the killer.)

You know, Tim, I worry that you have too much narrative integrity and not enough First Impression Strategy. It was a serious mistake to have Rebecca tied up in the first three eps because that's all the reviewers are going to see. They won't go back and do new reviews on episodes four five and six. And they only rarely eat their words.

So, while it's a more interesting story to start with her low and establish her arc - you would've been better served with something like that iconic image of Buffy doing a hand stand on the pipe in the alley. Something that would resonate about her character even if it tipped some of the story.

I am personally over my concerns about Rachel's damselfication that I had in the first episode. I like her fuckedupedness and see her as a compelling Red Riding Hood with a push-knife hidden in her basket.

I'm worried that it's too late to make that first impression on reviewers and audience now though.

I hear what you're saying, DavidS. The studio offered to send out a couple more eps for review, I said no.

I like her fuckedupedness and see her as a compelling Red Riding Hood with a push-knife hidden in her basket.

I feel like you must have seen what I'm up to -- that's pretty much what all 13 put together add up to. And that was on purpose.

The reviewers who panned us were kind of angry assholes. I'm talking about the really nasty pans. Not the dismissive ones from The Reporter or Variety -- they had rather more hard core pans for Wonderfalls and Firefly, by the way. But the angry ones. The INDIGNANT! ONES! Those professional TV viewers have procedural fatigue or whatever. Whaaa. Get another job. (There were one or two, one I can think of specifically -- who gave Wonderfalls GLOWING reviews... and I didn't much care for those either. Even when he was praising something, it felt snotty and dirty and elitist and I'd rather he didn't slobber on it.)

The critics who gave us good to great reviews seemed to be picking up what I, at least, thought was the point of what we've been doing. Now, you can be bored by that, or think we've done it badly or whatever... but to continue to bring up CSI or Law and Order really seems to miss it by a mile. If I were trying to do a law or science hard-fact procedural, you can bet I wouldn't confuse it with a melodrama (I use that term in the best sense, at least the way I feel about it.)

(I totally know I sound like one of those people who are all, "they just don't get it!" if they don't like it. Like Ed Wood at the top of that movie of the same name. Still. I think it. )

You learn something from each thing. And I think your First Impression Strategy theory is it.