I officially like this show. I knew I’d have to give it three or four episodes. It’s a neat idea and it’s fairly well written, it just needed to get its feet underneath it and become comfortable with the style.

There’s a catch, however, and I’ll get into that later. First a quick recap.

After the aimless wandering in “Sand,” Charlie Jade (both the show and the character) seem to have more of a foothold in their new digs. Charlie and the reporter Karl Lubinksy have formed an amicable relationship; Lubinsky starts paying Charlie a stipend for helping in investigate the Vex-Cor disaster. Lubinsky also thinks Charlie is an alien as it’s the only explanation to his not knowing who Nelson Mandela is or why his data reading gadget is so much more advanced than anything else in this world. A DNA report from a hospital will later disprove that and Lubinsky realizes Charlie’s from another dimension. Charlie thinks that’s a load of bollocks in his usual sexy, gruff manner. The man’s teeth are really white.

This episode’s quarry is the scientist Elliot Krogg. Dr. Krogg is a person of interest to Vex-Cor as he once lived in Alphaverse, helped build the dimensional gateway (which we still don’t know much about) and has somehow taken that knowledge and fled to Betaverse. After the disaster, Vex-Cor wants him back. They think he’s both responsible for the problem and the only one who knows how to fix it. Everyone else died.

So they send 01 Boxer to find him. 01 narrates this episode and it wasn’t the best choice. Michael Filipowich is a fine actor, playing the psycho heir apparent, but the voiceovers will stilted and forced. I’m not a fan of them period, but less so in this installment. Still, they weren’t prevalent and I could deal.

Krogg and his girlfriend are on the run and in a train station when Krogg needs to use the restroom or call someone. Security approaches his girlfriend, opens their bag, sees a metric ton of cash, and arrests her. 01 Boxer springs her and says he’s a friend, but then ties her up and injects her with something and gets the information about Krogg’s whereabouts.

Charlie has a nice moment with the Betaverse doppelganger of his wife Jasmine; a woman named Paula. This was the woman he accosted in “Sand” thinking it was Jasmine. Apparently he kills time by standing across the street watching her work at her dad’s diner. She approaches him and they make small talk and she ends with “Don’t be a stranger.” Lubinksy and Charlie would later have lunch at that diner - Paula and Charlie catching eyes more often than not. The Alphaverse Jasmine, on the other hand, is in some trouble. Some governmental types are telling her that because Charlie is presumed dead she and the house belong to the state. (More about the Class system, she’s a C3.) She won’t sign and instead goes to Charlie’s love/hate cop friend Sew Sew (seriously) and he says he could talk to her dad and try to get her old job back. She very dramatically says NEVER and runs off.

01 finds Krogg in a motel and interrogates him. This was the part I’m not sure about, and it seems all of Charlie Jade is going to have these moments. The board told 01 to find Krogg and bring him back. 01 finds him but then tortures him in the hotel room; at least I think it was torture. They never show it directly, just quick edits and snippets of violence – nothing more than a feeling. Krogg in disbelief says it couldn’t have been sabotage, as though 01 was trying to force a confession.

Charlie and Lubinsky find the hotel, bust in and see that Krogg is hung, naked (no pun intended) in the bathroom. Charlie sees 01 across the street and gives chase but loses him.

Meanwhile, Reena’s fallen on hard times. She’s getting sick and weak and has resorted to attacking business men and stealing their cash. She finds a place to stay for a short while but is evicted when the manager decides he doesn’t want a corpse in one of his rooms and cops in his lobby. Some Vex-Cor men arrive at the scene after security footage reveals she was the one at the Gammaverse facility. She eludes them and our last shot of her is deep in the tunnels underground.

Overall this was a good episode. It kept the show’s basic style without relying on it too much. The second episode was very conceptual, the third was very grounded. The writing was better and Lubinsky is turning out to be a very enjoyable character. Some of the lines and delivery are still a bit heavy handed, but not yet cliché. Marie-Julie Rivest is very attractive as Jasmine, more so as Paula, but she struggles with the same problem McKenzie (Reena) does in that you expect better acting from someone with that look. It’s like thinking you’re drinking Sprite and suddenly getting a mouthful of water. The whole cast seems like this with moments of genuine pathos peaking out of an hour’s worth of mediocrity.

Still, it’s sci-fi. The series bible for Charlie Jade was written by Hugo and Nebula Award winning author Robert Sawyer. There’s very little information on the episode writers and showrunner Robert Wortheimer’s credits are categorized as “high quality film and television productions.” ie: nothing we’ve heard of.

Which brings me to this. Charlie Jade was slated to occupy the Sci-Fi Friday 7pm CST/8pm EST time slot immediately before Doctor Who. With Battlestar: Galactica going on a nine month hiatus, it was nice to see Sci-Fi take a chance on a new show in a proven time slot. Unfortunately, the show’s been moved to Tuesday at 3am and instead on Friday we get Stargate SG-1. I don’t know about you guys, but I only watch SG-1 when I’m home from work sick and they have a marathon going and there’s nothing on the Food Network. SG-1 isn’t bad, it’s just the same as everything else, but that’s another set of reviews.

So thankfully, if you want to see more Charlie Jade you can if you have a DVR or Tivo. Or you can go bit torrent all the episodes. But this move by Sci-Fi pretty much ensures that not only was this show summer filler, they aren’t even giving it a chance to be a good one. No one will see this and thus a second season will never be made. This is sad because bad but original programming to me is better than the endless tripe that is Sci-Fi made for TV movies and ECW. No offense to wrestling fans, but seriously, on the Sci-Fi Channel?

So I’ll continue to review these as long as possible. Who knows, maybe a small cult following will revive the show. Not like that’s never been done.

I give this episode three and one half shiny blue stones.