This week Barker and Dove end up looking for the people who infected a young boy and are now blackmailing his mother for the cure, demanding millions of dollars in jewels from her place of work. Meanwhile Dove's brother rolls back into town and asks to stay at his place.

Read about jewels, viruses and a show which is failing to reach it's potential behind the link...

While the previous episode 'Nadia' was a solid and well written, Infected was decidedly average and rather pedestrian. It's not that it was bad, there's nothing really shocking in it, but the sum of it's parts just ended up being rather weak. That's a serious problem for an action/thriller which is only into it's fourth episode, things should still be new, exciting and well thrilling. As such this review is going to be one of the shortest ones I've ever written.

It seems things are already very formulaic and the show is struggling, honestly without a huge kick up the can I can't see The Beast making it to a second season. Swayze is pretty much carrying the entire show by himself as Larry Gillard Jr. is woefully underused and Travis just can't act convincingly in any way. With a deeper cast this would work, but The Beast essentially has a three man cast and two of them never interact with each other. So Travis (as the go-between) needs to be able to pull his weight, he can't.

It's very hard for me to write a lot about this particular episode, I realised halfway through I'd actually converted it into moving wallpaper, instead of paying attention and taking notes I was cleaning my living room and organising things ready to move home. That's really not a good indication at all because that's my behaviour when House is on and House is the ultimate time filler show for myself.

Ultimately it feels that the show is doomed to fail, which is a genuine shame because the core concept for the show is fantastic, likewise Swayze's performance is nothing short of phenomenal, his best performance since well... ever. But I have to be realistic, one man does not make a television show alone.

So ultimately Infected really doesn't have a lot going for it, I'm going to keep watching the show and writing about it, but the next episode needs to be a lot more gripping and deep than this one was.

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The Beast this week has Dove and Barker looking into the son of a Russian diplomat who is trafficing children and women, then selling the children while setting the women up as prostitutes. It's actually a big improvement from the first two episodes and while the show hasn't yet hit it's stride the story was enjoyable, fast and avoided the normal plot cliches quite well.

Read about accents, dvds and human traffic beyond the link...

Just like both previous episodes Swayze was on fire and giving a phenomenal performance throughout this episode. While I'm no expert on Russian accents I was impressed with Swayze's greatly, especially when combined with his ability to switch in and out of it in a single scene. Travis Fimmel (as Dove) on the other hand is still struggling, while he's OK in scenes with guest actors he's out of his depth when acting alongside Swayze or Gillard, they're just far more accomplished and believable actors than he is.

The main plot of the episode follows the titular Nadia, a Russian immigrant who came over to America in order to chase after her son, she knew she'd end up being forced into prostitution but didn't care because her son was important enough to her. Angela Gots was very accomplished in this role and while her character isn't one with much depth she did bring a lot to the episode as well. She was very good in the last few scenes she appeared in.

There's still not a lot more depth to talk about where the show is concerned though, we're getting hints of Barker's 'corruption', especially when it appears he had the Diplomat's son killed even though the man was all the way back in Russia. This happenstance has resulted in Dove looking at a copy of Barker's DVD file, but there's not much there to hook you in, just a torn up picture and a redacted letter so far. While it's good to tease things out when you're dealing with something like this the writer's need to be careful, because the rest of the show isn't gripping enough yet so they need to give us a real hook into Barker instead.

All in all I found this episode interesting, easy to follow and well performed, the show still needs to lift it's game higher if it wants to become a must watch show. But The Beast has real potential here and I genuinely enjoyed watching it. Everything else just needs to rise up and match Swayze and Gillard's performances.

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Rev/Views continues to follow The Beast with the second episode review today, I'm still unsure about the entire thing but I think I'm going to lock myself in for the entire first season before I judge it. I think the reasons I'm willing to give this show a chance are because the opening sequence is styled like Damages, Swayze and Gillard are excellent in it, it reminds me of The Shield and most of all, there seems to be the potential for a really special show lurking underneath the surface.

Read about blade drives, a blown cover and a father's love beyond the link...

Tonight's episode was a stand alone procedural with a somewhat weak plot, I get the feeling that the writers are gradually teasing things out while also keeping things 'one off' in order to try and keep the casual viewer in. But the problem is we still don't know just how far off the tracks Barker actually is. It's difficult to tell what stunts he pulls are going too far and what are acceptable. I don't really know much about the FBI operating procedures and I'm not sure if Dove really knows either.

The best move the episode pulled is it's switched Gillard into a permanent role as the agent who's trying to turn Dove around. Gillard is an excellent actor, he has a proven pedigree over on The Wire and he continues to be great here. Likewise Swayze is also excellent, but annoyingly Dove continues to be rather weak. I think he's intentionally a bit weak, it makes sense Barker would pick someone who's naive and easily manipulated. But it doesn't help that he's a very charismatic screen presence when he's on his own.

The story itself involved Barker and Dove going after some drug suppliers, in order to do so they had to locate the man who would be brokering the deal. Once again, just like last week I had some difficulty following the plot, everything is a little too compressed in the time frame, it honestly feels like The Beast is crying out for season long story arcs instead of these one-offs. But it did have some great moments, and they included the strip club scene where Dove blows his cover (once again showing his lack of experience) by mentioning the target by her name when she hadn't introduced herself as Lucy. Likewise the scene where Dove was waiting for 'the girl' (still no idea of her name) and Raymond (Gillard's character) rolled in and revealed just how closely he was keeping an eye on Dove. Also the final scenes between Lucy's distraught father and the target were good. It was pretty clearly signalled that he was going to shoot, but that moment wasn't hackneyed because it was the set up for the following scene. A scene where Barker shoots himself and then bluffs both of the dealers into making the exchange.

As I said last week, the show has a few failings but it also has some superb moments and excellent performances. I'm going to continue following it because I really hope this show will turn a corner and get good when the writers become willing to let us know exactly what the game is and how it's going to play out. Right now they're still pussyfooting around the FBI file on Barker and Dove remains only slightly suspicious of Barker.

I'll keep you informed and let you know if the show opens up into something really exciting.

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I've never been much of a fan when it comes to Patrick Swayze's work, I never really forgave him for Dirty Dancing and Ghost, films I've had inflicted on me more times than I care to count by various women, not even Point Break was enough to make up for those two. So I initially heard about 'The Beast' I wasn't that fussed or excited. But the show's name cropped up enough times that it officially landed 'on my radar' and became a show I wanted to pay attention to and maybe try. Well the pilot aired last night and I've just finished watching it.

This is going to be split in two, I'm going to put a general review up in the first part of this post and then talk a few spoiler specifics behind a cut later on.

The Beast stars Patrick Swayze as Charles Barker, an FBI agent with questionable methods and Travis Fimmel as Ellis Dove, his junior partner. Charles hand picked Dove and spends most of his time barking orders at the younger agent with little or no explanation as to the whys.

The show opens explosively enough and remains reasonably gripping if not brilliant. The real draw is without a doubt Swayze himself who is... well the phrase performance of a lifetime would probably apply here if it didn't sound so cliched and a little morbid considering Patrick's unfortunate battle with cancer. But it does seem he's funnelled at least some of this into his role. He genuinely looks worn and tired, like an experienced veteran agent and he's brought an edge into his performance that he's never had before (not even in Road House). Swayze is without a doubt the number one reason to watch the show, he's fantastic.

But, there are problems and I'd be lying if I didn't at least acknowledge them, some of the scenes are highly confusing. Especially the one involving Larry Gillard Jr, it's difficult to follow what's happening and why (Larry is brilliant in it mind you). Likewise the show feels a little gratuitous on occasion and an incident involving an SUV, Swayze and a RPG leaves you asking more questions than the cool was actually worth.

Likewise Ellis Dove is not a very interesting character, he's another 'bewildered kitten' character and this is unfortunate because he's the narrative tool here. We're following him around most of the time and Barker only occasionally. The glimpses into Barker's life and his questionable actions are far more interesting than Dove's attempts to get it on with the girl in the same building.

Alan Sepinwall has described the show as "...a dumber version of "The Shield."" But honestly it felt like a more intelligent version of '24' for a lot of the time. I was mentally drawing parallels between Barker and Bauer for a while and wondering if this would be worth watching beyond the first episode.

Then the final few minutes kicked in and the show came into focus, it stopped being trashy television action drama and began to feel like there was potential placed underneath this initial, halting start. The rest I'm going to have to put behind a spoiler, but I can stop here and at least say I think the show has enough potential that if you enjoyed '24', 'The Shield' or films like 'Training Day', 'The Recruit' and so forth -- shows with dubious characters and amoral decisions -- then you should at least give a few episodes of 'The Beast' a try.

Read on for the spoiler section which is located in the full post here...

Final warning here now, I will be giving spoilers here.

As I wrote above, the episode was entertaining but I wasn't sure what the point was until the final six minutes. This is when Dove got on board the train after a hellish day and was confronted with pretty much all of the faces he'd met during the day. Nick (Larry Gillard), Caesar (Sticky Fingerz) and more. For a moment I was pretty confused and wondered if Dove was supposed to be dreaming or freaking out from the pipe he'd smoked earlier in the episode. But then the woman flashed her FBI badge and began to speak.

Apparently the entire operation was set up by FBI internal affairs as a way to assess Dove, they have their suspicions about Barker and some proof that he's corrupt. They want Dove to help them out, but he refuses. Then he decides to head into the evidence locker to check the money from the launcher deal was all handed in, it was. But a highly sensitive drive filled with the names of various government agents was gone.

This is where the show actually became interesting and also where Alan's comparison with The Shield began to really make sense. One thing I've often wished about The Shield was that the events of the pilot episode had in fact happened halfway through the first season. I've also wondered what The Shield would be like if it was a show about investigation into corrupt cops rather than just about corrupt cops. (Not that I would ask for The Shield to be any different apart from my pilot episode wish).

The Beast seems to be directly inspired by The Shield and somewhat in the vein of Damages as well. You have an initial first episode to set the characters and introduce us to some slightly underhand acts from Barker, you then flip the plot on it's head at the end and turn things around. I was genuinely engaged during the last few moments of the show. Still, a few things still don't make any sense at this point, especially the role of Larry's character Nick who is apparently an undercover FBI agent (and serious method actor) and the purpose his scene served in the pilot. Time and more episodes might clear things up here.

If the show can make Dove more interesting and dial down some of it's slightly more gratuitous moments, plus deepen the cast beyond the initial few characters, there is a really good show waiting to turn up here. Just like The Shield took a little while to find it's feet and didn't really take off properly until the second season and just like The Wire required nearly a full season before it clicked. The Beast has the same seed of potential in it and fueled by Swayze's brilliance this could become amazing. Or it could fall into the mire 24 landed itself in. I hope it's the former as this show could join the ranks of 'Amazing shows begining with the word "The"'.

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