Misfits, Season 3, Episode 5
Written by Jon Brown
Directed by Will Sinclair
Airs Sundays, 10pm GMT on E4
While doing community service at the local hospital, Kelly gets trapped in the body of Jen, a coma victim and the gang have to hatch a plan to get her back, but there are complications. With this episode I couldn’t help but be reminded of Heaven Can Wait or Freaky Friday in that they both feature someone in another persons body, which allows the actor to interpret them in their own way. Also this seems to be a very common occurrence within the show this season. Simon was forcefully being told what to say by Peter and Curtis’s female counterpart constantly inherits his mannerisms.
It is a plot device that works well on occasion but being this frequent in a show that already has a short run of eight episodes this season, makes it poor writing in my eyes. I already complained about last weeks episode lacking explanation for a number of crucial plot-points and now they are reusing stories.
Making the bad person Kelly, at least in the flesh, only served to take us away from the tension of the plot even further. She is one of the main characters and we have grown to love her. Yes we worry when she does bad things like stab the probation worker, but ultimately we know that she will be fine and get away with it. All of the concern goes out of the way because it is somebody else inside of her. This is why I have never connected with this plot device in any movies either.
Another problem is that it took the entire episode to advance on slightly to the fact that Kelly and Seth are now boyfriend and girlfriend. Something that could have very easily been explained in 10 seconds as it was obviously coming.
We are 5 episodes into the season, and with three left it, the season hasn’t really progressed all that much. It feels as though they are holding off on the Simon going back in time storyline as long as they possibly can, in order to drag the show out further.
Realistically the show can only last 4 seasons until the point in which that happens. I went into this season thinking it would happen by the end of episode 8, but we are hardly any closer to that now than we were to begin with. It doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the show if he were to do that. Things could change, meaning that he didn’t die. They just need to come up with an inventive way of doing that. At the moment it doesn’t seem likely though.
Despite all of these grievances that I have with the show, there is still something that I love about it. It is consistently funny and really has a knack for one liners, particularly from Rudy, who has taken over from Nathan perfectly. One thing the show seems to have is a stand out character every season. In the first it was Nathan, in the second Simon and now it’s Rudy. It is when we see these characters that the show thrives and so luckily there has been a lot of him throughout this season.
The show is missing the interesting stories of the previous seasons that utilize the gangs powers. Who could forget the episode in which the crazy guy thinks everything is a computer game, or the episode where Alisha discovers future Simon? These were great episodes and they were frequent. I couldn’t tell you a single episode this season that has lived up to that standard.
I’m growing tired of the show as you can obviously tell. I can only take so many bad episodes in a row before I decide to be done with something. I’m going to finish out the season but if it doesn’t improve then I think I’m done watching it. It’s a real shame because it started out as a decent show that used the idea of superpowers as something interesting and new. Now they all have extremely boring powers and their enemies are extremely boring (excluding the Nazis last week).
The actors are not at fault here, each one plays their part very well. The show is also directed decently and I have previously spoken of my love for the cinematography that the show has. The flaws all lie in the writing. Unfortunately it is one of the most essential parts because a good show can not continue with that big of a weakness. I sincerely hope that the last three episodes of this season change drastically for the better.
Yiannis Cove