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Brief summary:
Newly separated from his wife, Frank travels
to a small town seemingly ruled by a pack of
ferocious wild dogs. But a journey into the
surrounding woods reveals the truth about the
dogs, new clues to the nature of The Millennium
Group, and the future of mankind.
Rogue's Review:
It's hard to evaluate this mutt of an episode
with anything but short strokes and gritted
teeth. In many ways, "Beware of the Dog"
reflects a perceived attempt by the new executive
team of Morgan and Wong to realign the focus
of the series, jettisoning the unrelenting grimness
and resonating realism of Season One for more
X-FILES-like thrills and chills. A debatable
point, and the season DOES take a sharp upward
turn shortly hereafter, but in this critic's
estimation, "Beware" remains the all-time
dog of the series.
Frank goes to a small
forest community to investigate a series of
killings by wild dogs, only to discover a town
that dreads sundown, where everyone thinks he's
the new sheriff and tries to shoo him away from
the truth of what's happening there. I kept
waiting for Agent Dale Cooper to show up and
offer Frank some damned good cherry pie -- the
whole episode was weird and off-kilter in a
very TWIN PEAKS kind of way... but in the end
it lacked everything that made that show (and
MILLENNIUM) a classic.
Ultimately, the episode
is a lesson in the balance between good and
evil for Frank, as symbolized by the vicious
dogs and explained in awkward, elliptical terms
by an elderly forest-dweller (veteran character
actor R.G. Armstrong). The Old Man tries to
make Frank realize the battle he has joined
is far older than he suspects, and vanquishing
the enemies of the Millennium Group and the
human race only prolongs the conflict. In other
words, as Frank surmises, "There will always
be another dog."
A sharp concept, that
one -- but very, very poorly executed. The season
would have benefited instead from bumping up
"The Hand of St. Sebastian" into its
slot, giving the Black family a break for a
week and plunging us more solidly into the season's
core mysteries -- what exactly is the centuries-old
Millennium Group, and what do they want with
Frank Black?
"Dog" only
takes half-hearted stabs at these questions,
making this sloppy episode one to beware. [Rating:
2/10]
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