Starring:
Yancy Butler as Lisa Gerou
William McNamara as Nick Boyer
David Leisure as William Tilbrook
Paul Williams as Dr. Mueller
Joey Buttafuoco as Frankie Carelli (yes, THAT Joey Buttafuoco)
Mark Folger as Scientist #2
Doug Llewelyn as Calvin Patterson
Dennison Samaroo as Scientist #1
Marc Segal as Bank Guard
Maureen Teefy as Chrome
Written by: Mark Verheiden, based on the "Weird Science" comic books, by William M. Gaines
Directed by: Ramon Menendez
Well, I praised the show’s first episode, “Dream of Doom”, for managing to be effective despite the show’s obviously low budget. I have also berated a couple additional episodes for trying to be too ambitious--the effects work in this entire show is shoddy, at best, and there are very few things that can ruin anything quite like bad special effects. Especially given the fact this show takes place in the future, at a time when technology runs rampant and has progressed beyond our wildest dreams. I thought the episodes that focused more on story and writing would be the better ones.
“Given the Heir” has ruined that idea for me. Here we have an episode that, aside from a couple of quick time travel sequences, have very little in the way of special effects; and yet, it’s an absolutely terrible, interminable bore. I kept sitting back, waiting for some kind of twist ending, only to be left hanging--this just may be the worst episode yet.
Yancy Butler plays Lisa Gerou, a woman who has a thing for a man named Nick Boyer (William McNamara). It is unspecified exactly what Boyer does, but judging from the women that are constantly vying for his attention, he must be famous for something. In order to appease him, she researches his likes and interests, then uses technology to mold herself into the perfect being for him. There’s just one little problem: All this is happening in 2006...as we learn, Nick died ten years ago, way back in 1996. So how can she meet up with him after he’s been dead for so long? Easy: Time travel. It’s still not common technology at this point, but after exchanging some sexual favors with a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, he agrees to build a time machine for her. I guess even distinguished prize winning men are as shallow as the rest of us!
We think there might be some sort of attachment that the two shared at some point, but unless I’m missing something, Lisa is actually just an obsessed fan from the future. In fact, Lisa Gerou isn’t even her real name: she got it from blending his mother’s first name, with his favorite “French-Canadian Scotch Whiskey”. Well that’s kind of creepy. But her attention-to-detail does pay off--armed with her future knowledge, she is able to withdraw $50,000 from his secretive second account, even going so far as to have her fingerprint altered to perfectly match the one that he used to safeguard that bank account.
Needless to say, everything goes terribly wrong for her. Her schemes to get his attention--taking a large sum of money out of someone’s account will do that--work fine for a short while, but after finding her to be inadequate in the sack, he quickly grows tired of her. He thinks she’s scheming with the account manager at his bank, so he has his bodyguard kidnap him. The bank manager, Mr. Tillgood, swears up and down that he had nothing to do with it, but poor Nick doesn’t believe him. So Tillgood steals the bodyguard’s gun and shoots him, the bullet going through the bodyguard and hitting Nick in the neck. Bingo, just like in “real life“, Nick ends up dying in 1996, and not even Lisa’s time travel can stop that. The end.
Based on a little research, the episode of “Weird Comics” that this was based off of had the same title, but focused on a man who had to put off marrying his wife because he’s so poor. After meeting a time traveling relative, he’s convinced that he can come into wealth by having her kill an ancestor, thus passing the money onto him. Even that idea is stupid, so I’m not surprised that, even with the major alterations to the story, this one falls quite flat, as well. There’s nothing really exciting that happens, nor any twist at the end that brings everything around full circle, so “Given the Heir” ends up being irreversibly dull.
EPISODE RATING: 3/10
Well, I praised the show’s first episode, “Dream of Doom”, for managing to be effective despite the show’s obviously low budget. I have also berated a couple additional episodes for trying to be too ambitious--the effects work in this entire show is shoddy, at best, and there are very few things that can ruin anything quite like bad special effects. Especially given the fact this show takes place in the future, at a time when technology runs rampant and has progressed beyond our wildest dreams. I thought the episodes that focused more on story and writing would be the better ones.
“Given the Heir” has ruined that idea for me. Here we have an episode that, aside from a couple of quick time travel sequences, have very little in the way of special effects; and yet, it’s an absolutely terrible, interminable bore. I kept sitting back, waiting for some kind of twist ending, only to be left hanging--this just may be the worst episode yet.
Yancy Butler plays Lisa Gerou, a woman who has a thing for a man named Nick Boyer (William McNamara). It is unspecified exactly what Boyer does, but judging from the women that are constantly vying for his attention, he must be famous for something. In order to appease him, she researches his likes and interests, then uses technology to mold herself into the perfect being for him. There’s just one little problem: All this is happening in 2006...as we learn, Nick died ten years ago, way back in 1996. So how can she meet up with him after he’s been dead for so long? Easy: Time travel. It’s still not common technology at this point, but after exchanging some sexual favors with a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, he agrees to build a time machine for her. I guess even distinguished prize winning men are as shallow as the rest of us!
We think there might be some sort of attachment that the two shared at some point, but unless I’m missing something, Lisa is actually just an obsessed fan from the future. In fact, Lisa Gerou isn’t even her real name: she got it from blending his mother’s first name, with his favorite “French-Canadian Scotch Whiskey”. Well that’s kind of creepy. But her attention-to-detail does pay off--armed with her future knowledge, she is able to withdraw $50,000 from his secretive second account, even going so far as to have her fingerprint altered to perfectly match the one that he used to safeguard that bank account.
Needless to say, everything goes terribly wrong for her. Her schemes to get his attention--taking a large sum of money out of someone’s account will do that--work fine for a short while, but after finding her to be inadequate in the sack, he quickly grows tired of her. He thinks she’s scheming with the account manager at his bank, so he has his bodyguard kidnap him. The bank manager, Mr. Tillgood, swears up and down that he had nothing to do with it, but poor Nick doesn’t believe him. So Tillgood steals the bodyguard’s gun and shoots him, the bullet going through the bodyguard and hitting Nick in the neck. Bingo, just like in “real life“, Nick ends up dying in 1996, and not even Lisa’s time travel can stop that. The end.
Based on a little research, the episode of “Weird Comics” that this was based off of had the same title, but focused on a man who had to put off marrying his wife because he’s so poor. After meeting a time traveling relative, he’s convinced that he can come into wealth by having her kill an ancestor, thus passing the money onto him. Even that idea is stupid, so I’m not surprised that, even with the major alterations to the story, this one falls quite flat, as well. There’s nothing really exciting that happens, nor any twist at the end that brings everything around full circle, so “Given the Heir” ends up being irreversibly dull.
EPISODE RATING: 3/10
FULL EPISODE
She WAS him after a sex change. He was so narcissistic he could only love himself. That's why she disappeared after he died. That's why she had the same fingerprints. That's why she had the same tattoo. It wasn't that hard to figure out,and it was spelled out as he lay dying.
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