Review of Somewhere Between 1.8

Somewhere Between ratcheted up the life-and-death tension in 1.8 this week, pitting Laura's daughter Serena vs. Nico's brother Danny as the one-or-the-other victim to be saved by Laura and Nico, who have the advantage of knowing what will happen any day now, at the end of this, but little else going for them in terms of power over events.

Nico, I've got to say, is not even too good a fighter, losing most of the one-on-one's he's been in. Laura can't seem to get it through her head that she has to stop screaming around authorities in clinics who can keep her locked up.

One good thing is that Tom -- Laura's husband and Serena's father -- seems to really want to help now. Were it up to him, he'd probably stop all executions, if there was a chance that would save Serena, who he can see is now undeniably in danger. The villain in office has shifted to the Governor.

By the way, I'm against capital punishment in principle, because our legal system is too imperfect to support the state taking anyone's life. Danny shouldn't need that evidence to keep him off death row -- he shouldn't have been there in the first place. In that sense, Somewhere Between, between the lines, actually works best as a disquisition against capital punishment.

As for time travel, the series is also doing a good job portraying what I think of as a recalcitrant universe - that is, a universe unwilling to let time travel undo what it the universe has laid out for itself and us. (I explore that kind of universe in The Chronology Protection Case, so I'm always glad to see it on a screen.)

I'd say episode 1.8 was the one of the best so far, and has put Somewhere Between on a fast track for an exciting ending.