3.3 Type 4 On the evidence of tonight’s effort, this third season is in danger of repeating the same mistake. Last time round, it was the fake psychic storyline that was offered up as a naff attempt to give Annie something to do. It was the weakest of that series by some distance, and seemed out of step with the rest of the show. Problems with the zombie plotline are manifold. Does anyone really believe that Sasha was quite so thick as to not accept the fact that she was, indeed, dead? Can any viewer tell me, honestly, that they felt any emotional connection with her whatsoever? Unlikely, given that she was such an utterly pathetic, unlikeable character. Sure, she was quite amusing, but given that the writers were asking us, and Annie, for that matter, to connect with her on an emotional level, she needed to have a much greater story than the one she had. Cue Annie throwing herself into Mitchell’s welcoming arms and furrowed brow. Which leads me nicely onto the romance I touched upon in last week’s review. I stated then that I was very nervous about where this was going, and I remain so. Problem is, I don’t want to see Mitchell chatting with George about how best to go about the whole love thing. Equally, I have little interest in watching Lenora Critchlow play the ditzy, kooky one. If I wanted to watch such things, I’d tune into endless repeats of Friends on E4. Unfortunately, it seems to me that the writers have given up on Annie’s character, relegating her to playing Mitchell’s squeeze. As I stated last week, I have little doubt that she’ll be handed a cracking episode later in the series. Until then, we’re stuck with this substandard plotting. In truth, I could have handled Annie’s kooky shtick a little easier if George and Mitchell had been given juicy plots themselves, but alas, that’s not the case. Instead, George finds out he’s going to be a dad to a little furry monster, and Mitchell finds himself the victim of a stalker. George and Nina first. Why, oh why did Nina have to be given what feels like an afterthought of a backstory? No suggestion of it until now, but we learned that she used to be beaten up by her mom and that this was the real reason she was scared to have a baby of her own, rather than the things that would freak all of us out. (Will he have big pointy ears and be the hairiest baby in the ward?) Then, to Mitchell. Having a stalker had the potential to be an interesting diversion to what else was happening around him, but bringing that to a swift, neat resolution in the space of an hour felt like a cheat to me. Far more interesting to see some copycat train killings occurring, surely, rather than stopping the chap before he had a chance. And I presume that there will be no more copycats around? As with other self-contained episodes last series, by failing to move things along and by concentrating on the mundane side of the daily lives of a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost, rather than throwing in the odd darker side of things too, we were handed a dull, occasionally funny, but ultimately disappointing episode. Read our review of episode 2, Adam’s Family, here. Follow Den Of Geek on Twitter right here.
