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.

One last thing. I will mention one person who does seem to get it... of course he's had a chance to see more than the critics, and that's Peter Liguori, the pres of the network. He called me Monday to tell me that he wanted to air two originals back to back, and wanted to do it on the 6th so there would be time for it to show up in the listings. He told me he'd been thinking a lot about the show, that he couldn't shake it, that this was a "testament to my illness," he said he didn't think it was something you could sell in ten minutes, called it all kinds of nice things, said it was a much better show than it was performing, and that he hadn't given up on it. So that's good.

Those professional TV viewers have procedural fatigue or whatever.

I'm curious to see what those reviewers have to say about CBSs Criminal Minds which is about FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit.

I liked this episode. I enjoy when the criminal and the cops engage in a battle of wits. Martin did seem one step ahead of the VCU but he had to have that validation.

And for some reason I thought he was after Roger's wife. Everyone just sort of assumed it was Roger that I thought for sure the housewife was the bad guy. Guess I overthought that one.

For a good while, I thought that the older of the two kids was the one being targeted. I was completely misdirected by the bit with the video game and his pulling a toy gun on Danny. When the missing cat was mentioned, my first assumption was that the kid had done something to it.

Nice misdirect.

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.

In a hostage situation? I thought that was pretty much protocol. But then, I possibly watch too much tv.

I dunno about protocol, but I still would have put a hole in the guy myself, damn the consequences. If I can put a hole in a black silhouette in the dark from 25 feet (4 shots to the body and one to the head--night qualifications with a .38 while I was with the military police), it would have been a cinch to put that guy down.