Search - The Dead Zone - The Complete Third Season on DVD

Season 3 of the best show on television!

Eddie Lancekick | Pacific Northwest | 04/22/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Season one introduced us to Johnny Smith, a man who awakens from a coma to discover he has the gift of "second sight" by touching people or objects. Season 2 carried us further into the Greg Stillson storyline and also threw some Johnny & Sara dilemmas at us. Season 3 is really more of the same: Tightly written stories solo stories with some ongoing subplots coming in here and there, to not only further the troubles Greg Stillson is causing, but to also introduce us to a new major character in Johnny's life.

Episodes 1 and 2 are "Finding Rachel, part 1 and 2" respectively. These first to launch a great suspenseful storyline that is similar in approach to season 2. A journalist student who is doing a film documentary for Stillsons campaign ends up missing. Johnny was the last one to see her alive, but every vision he has he only see's himself, and what is behind the missing woman. Ultimately Johnny ends up being a suspect, and the missing woman's sister is sure he knows something. I don't want to tell what happens in the climax of the second part of it, but suffice to say there is some great acting and script being dealt out here. The show leaves its more monotone, safe zone and amps up the suspense, drama, and intrigue to allow us to hold our breath, cross our fingers, and hope for the best, which of course is an outcome that only Johnny Smith may know...or control!

Sarah Wynter plays the missing woman's sister, and she is a regular seen throughout season three. Her relationship with Johnny is an up and down one...again, no spoilers here. Wynters does a fantastic job in her role and Sean Patrick Flannery and his campaign of lies and deceit rolls into deeper territory with terrifying consequences. We see Reverend Purdy is even locked in the web of dirty laundry that surrounds the Stillson campaign.

Episode 3 is "collision", and has a great twist to it for the fact that a vision of a missing girl ultimately takes him back to the night of his accident. There was another man there who left the scene shortly before Johnny's car exploded...but who was he? And what did he mean when he talked of "great things"? Awesome space-time conundrums here that leave you going "wow" again and again. After all, it is "the dead zone" so what more would you expect?

Episode 5 is "Awareness" and introduces a girl from the same government program Johnny helped in season 2 when trying to find a target in Afghanistan. The girl knows numbers, telephone, credit card, ebay passwords, birth dates, and the whole shamoo. They bang into her brain like direct waves of water, and she must interpret, filter, and adapt to them in order to survive. The Feds are out to get her, claiming murder...but Johnny thinks there is more to the story, and ultimately goes on the run with the girl. Great episode with lots of chase scenes.

Episode 6 is "no questions asked" and is fun and interesting because we get to see into what appears to be a not so innocent past of Sheriff Walt Bannerman. I don't want to reveal spoilers on this one but suffice to say it was very satisfying to see his characters past revealed, especially since it is not what we would have thought or expected.

Episode 9 is "Cycle of violence" and is a show that has a premise of something that is terrorizing America more than ever before: School shootings. Johnny has a vision of a shooting and now must find out whom before it happens. The principal (played by another 80's teen star in Judge Reinhold!!) goes overboard with policy and procedure, as the school quickly becomes a prison, creating more fear from students and stirring up more animosity towards faculty. Johnny suddenly realizes there is something more to his vision...it won't happen for several years! A great twist in the end that shows how some things can change if they are altered years earlier...as Johnny often says; "If you change one small detail...all of life changes".

"Instinct" comes in at episode 10 of 12 and is pretty hair raising. There are animals of all kinds going literally rabid and attacking people. Some are domestic poodles, some wild bears, but all have the same intent. Johnny and Walt must get to the bottom of what is causing this strange phenomena...only to find out they have a much bigger problem on their hands! Reverend Purdy is again brought out in this one with his personality confliction between a whisky drinking businessman and a man of god. Soon he will have to decide when it is time to face his sins, and many come out in this episode. Great story that left us hanging in the end, so I can't wait to see the recap and finish of it with Season 4!

Episode 12 also leaves us hanging again for a season four, and with good reason! A doctor has discovered through extensive tests that are of Johnny's brain that is causing his severe headaches and blackouts. He wants to have a normal life with his new girl, and live happily ever after, by starting over again. However, he's worried because he knows that the surgery may alter it to where his second sight is no more than a memory. Without he, he can't prevent the Armageddon that he keeps seeing as a result of Stillson achieving his own political dreams. Meanwhile, Johnny's friend that we see in season 2, which is sometimes referred to as "futureman" has come again to speak with Johnny, and the message he sends from the future looks to leave Johnny in another pickle in the present. It is a heartfelt moment we endure on the sidewalk one afternoon when Johnny informs Sara of his decision for surgery, and that if he goes into a coma...to not let it go on. A very moving piece of the Johnny Smith mythos as well as the Johnny/Sara storyline that is necessary to continue to tie into the emotional side of Johnny's present situation while continuing to connect him and Sara with the past.

Season three didn't necessarily stand out to me compared to seasons one and two as a whole. However, we did see, as mentioned before, a ramp up in the suspense category. The storyline with Stillson, Purdy, Rachel's sister, and futureman (read my review of "The dead zone" season 2 for more details of futureman). The drama aspect was there as it seems that certain stories are becoming more intense...we are seeing quicker anger, longer cries, and adrenaline filled moments of suspense that last longer than one punch being thrown or one corner being rounded by a chasing automobile. Leaving us hanging with the ongoing storyline is superb to leave us salivating for season four all the more. The Dead Zone is again, in season three, great in the categories of cinematic appeal, music, and character development. We are learning more about the supporting cast, who we've loved and cherished all along despite the show centering on Smith. The cast really comes across more as family to us. Seeing Walts past, wondering of the earths future, learning more about Reverend Purdys ongoings, loathing Greg Stillson, understanding Sara's love for Johnny, and wondering what tomorrow brings is what makes us watch the dead zone's third season. Overall great season and looking forward to season four!
"

Rebecca Carlson becomes a key part of Johnny Smith's future

Lawrance M. Bernabo | The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota | 06/16/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The flaw in the third season of "The Dead Zone" is seen when you compare the season finale from this season with the one from season two. A year previously we ended with Johnny Smith (Anthony Michael Hall) confronting Christopher Wey (Frank Whalen), the mysterious hooded man in his future who shows him a devastated world tied to Johnny's visions of Greg Stillson (Sean Patrick Flanery) causing a nuclear attack on Washington, D.C. But it takes us until the end of the third season to really get back to this point and move forward. The good news is that it sets up a tragic choice for Johnny in the fourth season; the bad news is that we only assume it will get resolved at that point because almost from the beginning "The Dead Zone" has been playing out the Stillson plot line. That is because stopping Stillson was the climax of the original novel by Stephen King, and this series has never made it clear that would be its own end point or if it would go beyond it to give Johnny a live afterwards. Consequently, the Stillson bit is a two-edged sword for the series, because it is very important but not exactly on the front burner.

But there is a logic to the third season, which is apparent in retrospect, because it begins with the two-part "Finding Rachel," in which Wey shows Johnny a vision of future and a "Missing" poster for Rachel Caldwell (Sonja Bennett), who was working for the Stillson campaign. It turns out she filmed something she should not have filmed, but when Johnny talks to her he has another one of his blackouts, wakes up with a head wound, and Rachel gone. Johnny meets Rachel's sister, Rebecca (Sarah Wynter), but the more he tries to fill in the gaps the more evidence he uncovers that make him look like Rachel's killer. No wonder it takes Johnny two episodes to get out of this one.

But several key elements of the third season are being set up at this point, the most important of which is Rebecca as a love interest for Johnny. Of course this requires Johnny to make a concerted effort to move on with Sarah (Nicole de Boer), and we have an episode that specifically does that ("Collision"), although they will always be plagued by "what ifs" ("Speak Now"). There are also these recurring blackouts that Johnny is having, which will come to a head, so to speak, by the end of the season ("Tipping Point"). Then we have the involvement of Reverend Purdy (David Ogden Stiers) with Stillson's campaign and what that means for his Faith Heritage Ministry ("Instinct"), as well as for Johnny's estate. However, at the end of the season we come back to Rebecca as the key to the future and the grim truth that what is required by Johnny may well be an act of omission rather than commission.

One of the key things is that "The Dead Zone" is evolving over the years, which is something series like "Medium" and "Ghost Whisperer" will have to contend with as they go along (and it will be interesting to see what they do in this regard). By this point Johnny has been doing this so long with such success, that we have gotten to a place where the problem is that people take him seriously, so if he yells wild horses are coming he is believed ("Instinct"), but this also cause problems because some go overboard trying to prevent the future Johnny sees ("Cycle of Violence"). Even the truth of J.J.'s parentage finally ends out in the open ("Cold Hard Truth"). However, this means that there are people who believe in Johnny's gift who decide they can play with him to get away with murder ("Looking Glass"). So the dynamic of the show is certainly changing over the years, plus they are still coming up with new special effects for allowing Johnny to check out a frozen moment in time.

As executive producer of his series, Hall is well aware that he has a loyal fan following that makes a point of seeking this show out on the USA network. Fans have to be overjoyed that every single one of the dozen third season episodes contains a commentary track. On the one hand you do not have a lot of actors showing up for these commentaries, but when they do they are certainly more involved than what we hear from other actors on other commentary tracks. The writers and directors show up ready to make intelligent comments as well, because everybody in this series takes what they are doing seriously. You have to wish all of our favorite television series treated us this well."