The main story is about an emotionally crippled delivery man who’s also got electrical powers, which he got when he replied to a newspaper small ad, and became part of an unusual science experiment. He’s not hungry for this power, he wants it removed, but that didn’t play as a title so well I assume. The real weakness of this episode however, is that it’s rather light on Walter (John Noble). While I appreciate other characters need screen time (this week it’s Olivia’s turn) the show undoubtedly cooks when John Noble is doing his impressive mad doctor routine. He’s now so good at doing it that I expect he’s now typecast as the wild-eyed scientist from this point in his career onwards. But entwined with that rather simple tale, some of this episode is given over to the unexpected appearance of Olivia’s ex-boyfriend, ex-traitor and ex-person – John. This contradiction is eventually explained by Walter, who proposes that when she connected to John’s conscious mind in the pilot episode, some of his mind leaked across into Olivia, where it’s still living alongside her identity. So John is dead, except a small bit of him occupying part of Olivia’s unconscious. Funky. If this information isn’t spurious then what more will John lead her to find, and will he exist in there indefinitely? Maybe, but who knows other than the script writers. Five stories in this isn’t much like the X-Files it so seemingly wanted to emulate early on, and it’s developing its own distinctive feel. Which if it expects to get past its first season is probably not a bad thing. More ‘mad’ Walter and weirdness, please! Check out our review of episode 4 here.
