It Rubs The Lotion on Its Skin

I've been watching a new show on Fox this summer called The Inside. The show focuses on the Violent Crimes Unit of the FBI and specifically on the newest member of the team, Rebecca Locke. Rebecca, as we find out, was kidnapped as a ten year old girl and held for 18 months before escaping. This experience gives her the edge to help her understand and catch the criminals they seek; it is her "gift, forged in pain" to use the words of her superior officer, Web. Web is the man in charge of VCU and seems to enjoy manipulating his people as they solve the crimes. He is not against putting them in harm's way without their knowledge or consent. Constantly butting heads with Web over his use of his people and specifically his use of Rebecca and her past is Paul Ryan.

The show tends to try to pull visuals, feelings and themes from both Seven and Silence of The Lambs. Unfortunately for the show and its ratings, it does not live up to either of those films. The SOTL comparisons are obvious, with Web playing Lector to Locke's Starling. Just in case we are all too slow to catch this comparison, one of the characters in the pilot episode disparagingly refers to Locke as Clarice. Always nice when a show decides to put some extra dialogue in just in case those of us in the audience are actually idiots.

Throughout each episode, they chase the bad guys who are, of course, more evil than anything we can imagine, and Web plays God with his staff. Paul becomes angry about the manipulation and resents the abuse of Locke's past. I'm still trying to decide whether sometime down the line we are going to find out that Web is actually a criminal, guilty of the same types of crimes they are supposed to solve or if we are going to realize that he is just a man whose past causes him to be obsessed with stopping the horrors no matter the cost to himself or others.

The Verdict: Just two episodes so far, so I'll reserve final judgment. I'll keep watching to give it a chance to impress me more; after all, it's still better than most of what's on TV. The best way to describe it is to steal a phrase a friend used while giving me an opinion on a movie: It's good enough that I'm disappointed it wasn't better.

Until later...