Stalker - TV Show

I started watching Stalker as it had both Maggie Q and Dylan McDermott in it, two excellent actors.  The first episode impressed me, mainly because of its fairly unique storyline and I continued watching.

As anyone who has read Reason for Vengeance or Crusade knows, I like strong female characters who stand by themselves and aren't just window dressing to the men.  Stalker had that with an equally split team, one of the women is in charge and also had an interesting ongoing story.

If you either want to watch this series or haven't seen episode Eighteen yet, stop reading now.

All OK?

Eighteen is the conclusion to Maggie Q's storyline.  Her psycho ex-boyfriend/stalker from her past has escaped from his mental asylum and kidnapped her.  The episodes leading up to this were very good with twists and turns throughout.  I thoroughly enjoyed them, but I've held off seeing this one for over a month.  I had a bad feeling about it and, having just watched it, I saw I was unfortunately right.

The junior male member of the team is badly injured and Maggie Q is kidnapped.  This leaves Dylan McDermott and the other female detective played by Mariana Klaveno to find her.  The kidnapper takes Maggie Q to a secluded cabin and then it all goes downhill from there.

Maggie Q manages to attack and defeat her kidnapper three times!  Each time, after he's down, she doesn't keep sticking the boot in until he can't get up again, oh no.  She turns her back on him and tries to run.  He of course catches her again.  This was bad enough, but the ending was much worse and pure Hollywood/American TV sexism.

Maggie Q escapes a fourth time and runs off into the woods pursued by the kidnapper.  McDermott and Klaveno turn up shortly after and go after them.  They are entering woods they don't know at night after someone they know is armed and what do they do?  They split up.

McDermott finds Maggie Q and takes her to a nearby cabin.  Shock of shocks, the kidnapper manages to capture Klaveno and follow them.  Klaveno gets knocked out, Maggie Q is tied up and McDermott is left free.  Kidnapper sets fire to house, McDermott tackles him, Maggie Q escapes, getting Klaveno out, McDermott defeats kidnapper and leaves him behind to burn.

Why with two strong female characters, does it have to be the male who saves the day?  This was pure lazy writing in my opinion.  You could have had a suspenseful standoff between Maggie Q and the kidnapper without all the forced action, while the others search frantically for them.  Then you have Maggie Q escape, just once mind, kick the kidnappers ass and call in the rest of the team who were already on their way.

Now I'm not saying I could write that.  I couldn't, not yet.  I've got a lot to learn, but these people are paid a reasonable amount of money and it should be well within their capabilities.

Anyway.  I'm off to watch the last two episodes.  Hopefully they'll be like the rest of the series and not as lazy as eighteen.

Edit - For the record, they weren't.  Nineteen and Twenty were much better and it's a shame the series wasn't picked up for a second season.

Oh, on the subject of my writing, don't ask.  It's not going very well on my new book.