Take Three: Perception

Perception: Season 1, Episode 3 “86’d” (C)

I’ve decided that it’s worthwhile to give a show at least three chances if time permits. I think that’s all this show should get since it doesn’t appear to be getting any better with age. Starting the episode with a theoretical question like “Which comes first, yesterday or tomorrow?” is highly pompous and unnecessary, and this show tries way too hard to make its protagonist seem uniquely brilliant and completely unparalleled by the rest of his peers. Bringing in Kate’s father as a former detective working on the case didn’t add much other than revealing the very surprising and inconsistent fact that Kate is married, something that didn’t seem to come up last week when she took a new professor to a sports game. There were two familiar TV faces in this installment, the more intriguing of which was Sheryl Lee, best known as Laura Palmer on “Twin Peaks,” as another young woman whose life was taken away from her at an early age. Pamela Reed, famous for playing fierce matriarchs on “Jericho” and “Parks and Recreation,” was considerably kinder in this role. I know that the repeated introductions to Daniel and Kate were meant to be indicative of the fact that she can’t make new memories and won’t ever remember them from day to day, but it was more illustrative of the fact that they just aren’t memorable characters. Daniel’s imaginary friend Natalie isn’t all that interesting either, and it’s hard to get attached to lackluster characters such as these.