neXt Review: Case #5 (Season 1 Episode 5)
neXt delivers its worst episode yet with Season 1 Episode 5, “Case #5.”
The issue with this episode comes down to one all-encompassing point: it is completely useless on the face of it. It’s an hour where it feels like a lot is happening but when you take a step back, you realize that it actually lead to nothing substantial on any real level.
“Case #5” is a placeholder episode, in which its only purpose is to get the series to the next thing it will do in the following episode. There are some shows that can make a meal out of that and there are others that simply cannot. This is an instance in which the latter applies.
A big part of why this does not work is that there is just too much going on throughout this episode. It’s attempting to have separate arcs for Shea, Paul, Gina, and Ted — and it doesn’t have the room to make any of those the slightest bit satisfying.
Truthfully, it needed to drop at least one of these plotlines to make way for the others because what we ultimately have here is an incomplete episode. Too much of this has us wondering what exactly we were watching and what the purpose is to do so. Gina and Paul’s arcs, in particular, feels like they don’t matter and have no significant throughline.
We spend so much time with Gina at the hospital trying to stave off an accidental overdose and there’s no real point to it. We’re only there because we feel like we should be spending time with each of our main characters when that is not necessary.
There is nothing wrong with putting a member of your principal cast on the backburner for an episode because you do not have space for them on that episode. This is a lesson that a lot of shows have still not learned yet but it’s perfectly okay to just let a character drift into the background for a while until there’s an actual use for them.
The same can be said for Paul and his daughter just wandering around the city. There’s no point to it. The show can easily just have the pair of them appear on the next episode and fast forward through the drudgery.
“Case #5” should have been a more focused episode on Shea and Ted’s individual storylines. That is what could have saved this episode. Really, the interruption of Shea’s arc during this installment is why it ultimately ends up failing. The menace that comes from her father threatening to take her son relies on that inherent tension.
It needs the ratcheting up from discovering who he is to being held hostage and trying to suss out the next move. It does a real disservice to leave this for another episode to deal with when you squander all of that rising action. It robs us of the climax and that is borderline unforgivable.
Does that mean exciting things lie in wait for us with the next episode? Yes, but that’s beyond the point to the extent of being irrelevant. These are things that the show should be paying off on this episode, not the next.
What did you think of this episode of neXt? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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neXt airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on FOX.
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Drew Koenig
Drew has an ongoing, borderline unhealthy obsession with pop culture, but with television in particular. When he's not aggressively trying to get out of a perpetual state of catching up, he can be found passionately defending the ending of Lost. More of his online work can be found at The Lost Cause and he also co-hosts The Lost Cause Pod.