Written By Rick Ellis, May 6th, 1997

While some shows have improved over the season, others have continued to shrink in ambition and decline in quality. The Burning Zone runs the risk of fading away into the ozone.

This series has always showed more potential than it's ever been able to deliver. But in the front 13 episodes, it managed to put together 5 or 6 really strong shows. And most of the ones that *didn't* work at least managed to be misguided instead of stupid.

But the producers and much of the cast changed at midseason, and the show has just floundered ever since. The decision was made to move from a conspiracy-oriented theme to one of "outbreak of the week". All of which sounds good on paper. But when you get right down to it, how many different ways are there to do the same plot? Some bad person introduces a killer virus, and our intrepid cast have to uncover the truth before it's too late.

This week's episode was the most simpleminded yet.

They wheeled out the old "disenfranchised Army Colonel gone bad" scenerio and the resulting script could have been written by anyone over the age of eight. The plot was riddled with holes and inconsistencies.

So the Colonel thought the military was weak. Exactly how was he going to change that by poisoning innocent civilians? And the episode ended with an unlikely shoot-out *on* an Army base. Somehow our intrepid good guy sneaks onto the base, and proceeds to get into a gunfight with a number of soldiers, armed only with a pistol. And do you mean to tell me that the Army doesn't possess a rifle that can shoot *through* a metal barrel? And with a gunfight breaking out on the base, the MP's only send two hummers to investigate? I realize there have been cutbacks since the end of the Cold War...but somehow I doubt this scenerio...

There's a point in every relationship when it's time to give up, and I'm at mine with The Burning Zone.

This series will be gone soon, anyway. And if I want to watch a dumb action series, I'll just try and catch The Sentinel. At least with that we get some nifty scenes of a detective sniffing out his enemy[gg].

THE CAST:

Jeffrey Dean Morgan.....Dr. Edward Marcase

Dr. Kimberly Shiroma......Tamyln Tomita

Michael Hailey......James Black

Dr. Thurman Rhinehardt......Dennis Arndt