I’ve been captioning a miniseries called 5ive Days To Midnight, which is due to air on the Space channel sometime soon (possibly September). It’s got an intriguing premise behind it. On the 10th anniversary of his wife’s death, a physics professor named J.T. Neumeyer finds a strange silver case behind her grave. Inside the case is a police file detailing the investigation into J.T.’s murder, which will apparently take place in five days’ time. At first, he assumes it’s a hoax, but as time passes, some of the “predictions” in the file begin to come true, and he learns that he may not know some of his close friends and family as well as he thought…

So, neat premise, and for the first two hours, the only major flaw is the director’s choice to film all of the suspenseful action sequences in Jerkyvision, a sort of effect that’s probably supposed to look tense and exciting but just looks as though the camera is suffering from epileptic seizures. The writing more or less holds up, with what looks like a relatively subtle theme symbolically comparing the actions of fate to those of a dog that keeps popping up in the narrative (dog: now try spelling it backwards).

But then I started working on the third hour. Back when J.T. thought this was a hoax, he gave the briefcase to a friend to analyse, hoping for some clue as to who had sent it and dismissing the fact that his friend’s name was on the suspect list. Now, the friend claims that the case is made of an ultra-futuristic material that could make them both rich beyond the dreams of Enron if they patent it. And when J.T. tries to take the case back, claiming that this would effectively be a form of theft, the friend becomes… possessive. Desperate. Violent, even. So what’s J.T.’s response to his desperate, potentially violent friend who is apparently, in the future, suspected of murdering him?

“No. That would be wrong.” And he practically yanks the case out of his friend’s grasp.

Look, there’s ethics and then there’s… well, as the man once said, “Ray, when someone asks you if you’re a god, you say YES!!”

But even that’s as nothing when compared to what follows, when, within the space of a single scene, WHAM-WHAM-WHAM, the screenplay gets whacked thrice with the Clueless Stick. Observe: at the end of Hour 2, J.T. learned that one of the other characters has hidden ties to the mob. During the course of their conversation, Character X (no spoilers!) tried to hand J.T. a gun for his protection, warning him that he and his 10-year-old daughter, Jesse, were now in danger. Now, halfway through Hour 3, who should turn up but the mobster in question, Roy Bremmer, who informs J.T. that he’s keeping both him and Jesse under surveillance. As he is speaking, J.T.’s cell phone rings, and Roy crunches it underfoot, telling J.T. that he doesn’t like people taking phone calls while he’s talking to them.

So far, so good. And then J.T. goes to Jesse’s school, and…

(1) WHAM! Clueless Stick hits the Character!

J.T. drags Jesse out of class, telling her that they have to go on a trip. But first, he has to make an important phone call, so he has Jesse stand in the school’s doorway where he can see her while he uses the pay phone on the wall. Yes. Rather than make the phone call first and leave his daughter in class, in company, with her teacher and several other students, while he does so… rather than keep her right by his side at all times… he drags her out of class and has her stand alone in the doorway while he deals with other matters. At one point she even wanders outside and around the door, so all J.T. can see is her vague silhouette through the frosted window. Wrong!!

(2) WHAM! Clueless Stick hits the Dialogue!

So J.T. is now on the phone to Character X while Jess stands just beyond his line of sight and crowds of people come running up to the school, offering to show her puppies. Character X asks why J.T. hasn’t been answering his cell phone, and J.T. says, quite significantly, that his cell phone was smashed by “someone” who doesn’t like people taking phone calls while he’s talking to them.

To which Character X responds: “Oh, my God… (pause) Roy?”

Oh, is that who he’s talking about? Thanks! We never would have guessed he was talking about Roy if you hadn’t spelled it out for us! Ha! Hey, is that an avalanche?

(3) WHAM! Clueless Stick hits the Internal Continuity!

“This isn’t about us anymore,” J.T. informs Character X. “Now Jesse’s in danger.”

Right. Notice the verb there, “informs.” The fact that Jesse is in danger is apparently a new fact that has not yet come up in conversation. Except it did, last night, when Character X, as you may recall, tried to hand J.T. a gun for his protection, warning him that he and his 10-year-old daughter, Jesse, were now in danger. This brand new terrible danger that has apparently only just occurred to J.T. has already been explicitly stated in the dialogue.

Hopefully, this is a minor glitch and the writing will improve again. But for crying out loud, people. Things were going so well, and now this. It’s like watching a roller coaster leap the tracks.