<\/center><\/p>\nCreated by:<\/b>
\nCraig W. Van Sickle
\nSteven Long Mitchell<\/p>\n
Starring:<\/b>
\nMichael T. Weiss ………. Jarod
\nAndrea Parker ………. Miss Parker
\nPatrick Bauchau ………. Sydney
\nJon Gries ………. Broots
\nPamela Gidley ………. Brigitte
\nJamie Denton ………. Mr. Lyle
\nRyan Merriman ………. Young Jarod<\/p>\n
The Show<\/b><\/u>
\nImagine that there are people smart enough, with high enough IQ’s that they could slip in to any life they wanted. They could one day pretend to be a doctor or an officer of the law and the next an arms dealer or a pilot. Nothing can stop them from placing themselves in the shoes of another person and think, act and feel like the ones they want to be simply by picking up and reading a single book or file.<\/p>\n
<\/center><\/p>\nJarod was a pretender, he helped The Centre, a secret organization for years to help them solve some of the most complex simulations possible. Only he was never helping out of the goodness of his heart, he was kidnapped when he was a child and was then lied to by the Centre in to believing his parents died in a plane crash. It wasn’t until almost twenty years later that he found out the truth of how he wound up at the facility and that some simulations he was helping with were being used for war tactics killing countless people. Now he’s on the run trying to relocate his once thought lost family and to reveal the evil of the Centre.<\/p>\n
On his way to reunite with the ones he thought he had lost forever, Jarod takes time to help the helpless, to protect those who society turned their backs on. What gave this show its uniqueness was that it took the stale boring random hero saves the day concept and spun it on its head by simply tweaking said random hero in to a super genius who can slip in to any character he chooses at any place and time. He can think like his adversary would which usually leads to him playing a game of cat and mouse knowing in minutes who caused the crime only playing mind games for the rest of the episode. And man is it fun to watch.<\/p>\n
Things aren’t that easy of coarse, the Centre has put much time and money breeding Jarod in to the super genius that he is. Naturally they want him back. There are three key people chasing after him, Sydney his former mentor who acted not only as a teacher but also a father figure, Ms. Parker an old friend from the Centre who’s the daughter of the second in command of the facility, she’s now leading the hunt to capture Jarod and then there’s Broots her assistant. Jarod always manages to stay one step ahead of his hunters, slipping away just before they figure out where he is.<\/p>\n
<\/center><\/p>\nThis is a review for the third season of the show and usually at this point a series will start to settle in on the way things will be run, it usually finds a balance between the first two seasons and will see a clear path on where things are going. That didn’t seem to be the way things went with The Pretender. Season one focused on Jarod and the start of his journey, season two began to show us a little more of the Centre and more about who was running things. This was a perfect balance between out hero and the rest of the cast, season three pushed that boundary too far knocking the order out of loop. <\/p>\n
season three no longer was about the Pretender, it’s no longer centering around Jarod and that’s what hurts it the most, in some episodes he’s merely an after thought thrown in to tie him in to the plot somehow. While the Centre characters needed to be more three dimensional the way the writers carried it out is laughable at best and pathetic at worst. Trying to show that even those who work there are prisoners under its spell, trying to make us connect with the ruthless company that imprisoned Jarod. It’s surprising that people as pig headed, stubborn, moronic and slow minded as they are — are allowed to even know about the Centre’s existence let alone be a critical part of the company. Once they changed the style of the show everything that made it all enjoyable to watch slowly began to fade away in favor of the more melodramatic soap opera style storylines involving Centre personnel.<\/p>\n
That isn’t to say that the cast lowered in quality this season, or even the words they were made to say for that matter, simply the stories they were placed in are what made the show not work. The show begins to get caught up in its own mythology where writers would try to reveal huge secrets and mysteries regarding the inner working of the Centre and all the characters on the show on a weekly basis eventually getting full of themselves with ideas that are from way out in left field. Much like what happened with The X-Files, they got the idea that revealing more was the better choice only they’re 100% wrong on that assumption. The mystique and unknowingness was only a part of what made the show what it was. The real reason things were so entertaining to watch was because of Jarod and his adventures.<\/p>\n
<\/center><\/p>\nHaving never actually seen season four in either it’s initial run on NBC or in reruns I can only hope that the writers pull themselves together and bring the show back on track, because if this is a sign of what’s to come it’s no wonder the show was cancelled after the fourth season. The third season took several large steps back from what the series once was and while there are still entertaining episodes on the discs there are much fewer than in any of the previous seasons.<\/p>\n
score:<\/b> 5.5\/10<\/p>\n
\nThe Video<\/b><\/u>
\n(Presented in 1.78:1 Anamorphic Widescreen)<\/i>
\nBeing a show now close to ten years old I’m finding it hard to believe that it was filmed in widescreen, it seems more like it was just letterboxed from fullframe. Since I can’t find solid proof of what it was filmed in I’ll give Fox the benefit of the doubt regarding the aspect ratio. The print used for the DVD is near flawless barring a some minor debris that will pop up maybe one or two times per episode. <\/p>\n
\nThe Audio<\/b><\/u>
\n(English, French & Spanish 2.0 Stereo Surround)<\/i>
\nFor a regular stereo surround track it has a surprisingly dynamic range where sound is coming at you from all sides really pulling you in to the story. The musical scores on each episode come through clear as does the dialog.<\/p>\n
\nThe Extras<\/b><\/u><\/p>\n
There are three commentary tracks<\/b> included on the 4 disc set for “Crazy”, “In the Hour of Our Death”<\/i> and “Wake Up”<\/i> by Craig W. Van Sickle and Steven Long Mitchell the series creators. Sad to see they have so few episodes with commentary, 1 per 7 episodes really isn’t much at all, but it’s better than none so I digress. All of the tracks tend to be the same, the guys focus on maybe three things and try to go deeper in to each part only it usually winds up with them repeating themselves. Another issue with the tracks is they’ll talk about unimportant things and then there would be a dead spot which causes the viewer to instead focus on the episode at hand instead of what they’re saying.<\/p>\n
Also in the season set is a three part Making Of<\/b> featurette that is spread out over the discs that runs roughly a half hour long when combined. I’m actually quite amazed with the number of people who return to share their experience on the show. The creators, writers, producers and many of the key cast are involved here. The three parts combined take a decent look at the evolution of the season with the master minds behind the show talking about some of the choices they made that altered a lot of the working of the characters in the Centre. Shame they seem to take so much credit and think how brilliant each idea was as it’s quite clear that most of it didn’t work. The most interesting thing from all of this is the actors sharing their thoughts on their own work along with their co-stars.<\/p>\n
score:<\/b> 5\/10<\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Created by: Craig W. Van Sickle Steven Long Mitchell Starring: Michael T. Weiss ………. Jarod Andrea Parker ………. Miss Parker Patrick Bauchau ………. Sydney Jon Gries ………. Broots Pamela Gidley ………. Brigitte Jamie Denton ………. Mr. Lyle Ryan Merriman ………. Young Jarod The Show Imagine that there are people smart enough, with high enough IQ’s … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":130,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"zone":[121876],"series":[],"episode_featured_image":false,"episode_player_image":"https:\/\/insidepulse.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/seriously-simple-podcasting\/assets\/images\/no-album-art.png","download_link":"","player_link":"","audio_player":false,"episode_data":{"playerMode":"dark","subscribeUrls":{"apple_podcasts":{"key":"apple_podcasts","url":"","label":"Apple Podcasts","class":"apple_podcasts","icon":"apple-podcasts.png"},"stitcher":{"key":"stitcher","url":"","label":"Stitcher","class":"stitcher","icon":"stitcher.png"},"google_podcasts":{"key":"google_podcasts","url":"","label":"Google Podcasts","class":"google_podcasts","icon":"google-podcasts.png"},"spotify":{"key":"spotify","url":"","label":"Spotify","class":"spotify","icon":"spotify.png"}},"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/insidepulse.com\/feed\/podcast\/inside-pulse","embedCode":"InsidePulse DVD Review – The Pretender: The Complete Third Season<\/a><\/blockquote>