Century City Review – “A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Lose”

This was the last episode to reach the air the first
time around.

Cast and Crew

Nestor Carbonell as Tom Montero

Viola Davis as Hannah Crane

Ioan Gruffudd as Lukas Gold

Kristin Lehman as Lee May Bristol

Eric Schaeffer as Darwin McNeil

Hector Elizondo as Martin Constable

Shannon Walker Williams as Voxy

Guest starring Bree Turner, Kevin J. O’Connor, Jessica
Hecht, Alan
Blumenfeld, Matt Battaglia, and Freda Foh Shen.

Written by Ellie Herman.

Directed by Ron Lagomarsino.

Created by Ed Zuckerman.

Complete information is
available from this
IMDB
page
.


Past TV reviews can be found here.

Original Airdate


A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Lose originally
aired on March
30, 2004. This was the fourth and last episode to air
in the original
run.

Synopsis

We’ve got four plotlines about messed up love. The
major plotline is
the dramatic case involving a “flowers for Algernon”
type of story,
where a man’s wife is fighting in court to have him
declared
incompetent so that she can force him to lose an
implant increasing
his intelligence that will likely kill him in a small
amount of time.
The secondary plotline is one of the funniest cases
I’ve seen on the
series, in which a man sues a woman for emotional
damages when he
sobers up enough to realize the woman he slept with
has a decorative
penis. The third plotline is dealing with Darwin’s
jealousy and
emotional hangup on a computerized assistant,
instigated when Tom
Montero has an upgraded version installed in his
office. The fourth
plotline is a minor one, with Lee May trying to find a
way to
disconnect from her feelings toward a married
co-worker.

High Point

“Who is the President of the United States?”

“Oprah Winfrey.”

“See? He knows what’s going on!”

Low Point

The secondary plotlines should have continued a bit
longer. We’ve seen
the “flowers for Algernon” thing before, and it
certainly shouldn’t
have been such an overwhelming portion of the episode.

The Review

The originality feels low. The case with the
cosmetic
surgery was an idea I haven’t seen before, but the
main plot of the
episode is far from it. (I’ll say it again: “flowers
for Algernon.”)
I give it 3 out of 6.

The effects are the usual convincing
subtleties. In fact,
the CGI skyline was the only effect I can think of. I
give it 6 out
of 6.

The stories were well written, with
interesting symmetries.
My only complaint is that we’ve seen the major
plotline many, many
times before. I give it 5 out of 6.

The acting was very good. O’Connor really
sold a hard role.
Turner and Battaglia did nice work when playing
against gender
stereotypes for the comedic plot. Schaeffer really
starts bringing
depth to Darwin this week, too. (It’s unfortunate
that the episodes
were aired so badly out of order; this really needs to
be the second
last in the sequence.) I give it 5 out of 6.

The emotional response was fairly good.
There was some
boredom with the rehashed main storyline, but the
secondary storylines
all hit the marks. Even the major storyline had some
powerful
moments. I give it 5 out of 6.

The production was very well done. The
subtlety in the sets
involved in the surprise party were especially nice to
see. My only
concerns are in the editing, which left too much of
the serious
plotline for the final act. I give it 5 out of 6.

Overall, this was probably the funniest
episode of the
series. I give it 5 out of 6.

In total, A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Lose
receives 34 out
of 42.

Next Week

Next week’s episode is the one with the most powerful
dramatic storyline in the series.