Tuesday 20 May 2014

35: Metamorphosis (3.01)

1979; 48 minutes
Director of Photography John McPherson 
Written by Frank Dandridge; Produced by Robert Bennett Steinhauer;
Directed by Alan J Levi

Beginning with a corny Kiss-style female-fronted rock show, the escalating frenzy of the crowd results in one of the fans being trampled and, ultimately, paralysed.  Hearing about the injured girl on the car radio the star of the show, Lisa Swan, drives increasingly erratically and crashes off the side of the road.  David is resting nearby and after helping out Swan and her manager he's offered a job assisting on the show as a roadie.  He aids Swan in combating her own demons whilst finding himself on the receiving end of the jealous actions of one of the crew.

Reasonable season three opener, although its enticing title really becomes descriptive of Swan's own internal struggles as she fights an instinct to create music that she favours, against her manager's more money-oriented plans.  The same cheesy rock song is heard about three times and unfortunately sticks in your head for a while afterwards, but the episode does tackle some of the genuine issues faced by musicians (exposure to the world of drugs, and to a greater extent, the conflict between what they want to do artistically, and what their managers instruct them to do out of commercial motivation).

McGee is on the scene quickly, eventually being in the right/wrong place at the right time to witness the Hulk's second appearance and continuing to demonstrate the perplexing tendency of a reporter who never thinks to carry a camera.  Also of note, Banner's first transformation is unusual in the fact that it is actually triggered by Hulk himself (Banner is drugged with LSD, against his knowledge of course, setting off the kind of psychedelic trip he would rather have avoided).

Number of Fists: ***

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