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Once upon a time, there was a great movie called The Dead Zone.
It starred Christopher Walken in a typically enigmatic performance.
Then they made a TV series. How could anyone follow Walken? Well,
perhaps it is simply unfair to make that comparison, because basically
nobody does Walken like Walken does.
So what of this TV series? Well, it stars Anthony Michael Hall
who does a reasonably good job of playing Johnny Smith - the man
who has a bad accident, lies in a coma for years, then wakes up
with certain prescient 'powers'. Nicole de Boer (familiar from Deepwater
Black, ST:DS9 and Cube) is Sarah Bannerman, the girlfriend he once
had, but now married to the local sheriff (Chris Bruno). Johnny
is assisted by Bruce Lewis (John L. Adams) and not assisted by now-father-in-law
Reverend Gene Purdy (David Ogden Stiers - famously known as Major
Charles Emerson Winchester III, MD in M*A*S*H).
The series does make a good effort and some episodes are interesting,
but far too many episodes are rather derivative of other TV shows.
There simply isn't enough exploration of the powers themselves as
too many stories go into rehashes of old TV drama plots.
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