Today, Maryland J. Koba goes on a diet. Not that I need to. Our General Manager is another story, though... #whap!# Er... sorry, Mom... Back to the review.
I'll be honest with you. This isn't going to be a totally unbiased review. See, we here at KOBA-TV watched The Burning Zone on UPN. It's on after one of our favorite shows, Homeboys in Outer Space. We even caught sight of our favorite Terrian, Russ Werkman, playing a priest in a good episode last month about strange Nazi experiments resurfacing 50 years later. Cool. But then, we turned it on one week, and the two original doctors, Kimberly Shiroma and David Marquese, were mysteriously GONE! Did they succumb to a virus that they were fighting? Call Unsolved Mysteries! Call Mulder and Scully!
Our favorite tomboy, J. Madison Wright, was on BZ this past week. Being that she's MJK's little buddy - she put me in her backpack and fed me spirulina - I couldn't let this opportunity slip through my fingers. Maddie played a young ballerina who was dying to be thinner. Literally. You see, she's doing something that's the bane of dancers everywhere, developing a figure. So, her sleazy dance instructor gave her some diet pills that caused her to go into a coma. Maddie only had three scenes in the show where she actually talked. The rest of the time, she did a great job acting comatose. Must've learned that from Antonio - when he was doing all of the dreaming scenes, that is! Her most dramatic moment occurs when she gets home from dance class and gets sick. She doesn't scream, but was especially good when she realized that something was wrong with her.
Meanwhile, more people fall sick, and the supersecret Government medical team brings in their newest doctor, the stud-muffin that replaced the two missing originals. He investigates whether the diet pill was causing the mystery illness, finds how to bring Maddie out of her coma, deals with a corporate conspiracy, causes a shady doctor to lose his license, and romances his reporter girlfriend - all before dinner. It's "SUPERDOC!" Bleah. This guy couldn't act his way out of a paper bag. Maddie did a better job in her scenes, and she was in a coma! All's well that ends well, and Maddie gets a lecture about fad diets on her way out of the hospital. Yeah, kid. Keep that up and you'll be competing with Kate Moss.
This episode of BZ really tried hard. I respect that someone is putting out a message about eating disorders, but this is not the way to go about it. As a former fan of BZ, I couldn't help thinking that the old doctors - one of whom was an attractive woman - would have done so much better with the material. Whenever Maddie wasn't on camera, I was bored. How far this show has fallen from a few weeks ago! Seems that the changes made by the network to improve ratings have had the opposite effect. Yet another instance of networks meddling in SF shows and ruining them.
In all, Maryland J. Koba gives The Burning Zone two defective diet pills out of five. Not for Maddie, who was the only bright ember in this otherwise Burned-out Zone.