Plot: Lieutenant Beth Davis (Maggie Q) is the head of the Threat Assessment Unit (TAU) in Los Angeles. It is a small team that essentially deals with stalkers. There are two cases running at the same time throughout this episode. In the first, the TAU is trying to track down the person responsible for the death of Kate Edwards (Torrey DeVitto). The second, involves a guy named Eric (Darren Kagasoff) being stalked by his old college roommate, Perry Whitley (Erik Stocklin).
The premiere episode of CBS’ Stalker, kicked off with a bang. Within minutes we see a young woman named Kate coming face to face with her stalker. He’s wearing a creepy flesh toned mask with X’s for eyes, and it’s terrifying. He covers her in gasoline as she attempts to seek refuge in her car, only to realize she dropped her keys. She throws her car into neutral sending her car backwards down a hill, but the stalker has already thrown gas on the car and lit it on fire. As far as opening scenes are concerned, this one definitely caught my attention. Unfortunately, it didn’t hold it much longer.
After the opening scene we are introduced to Lt. Davis. Right off the bat you can see how serious of a character she is. She is in her office speaking to Det. Jack Larsen (Dylan McDermott) who is a transfer from New York. She clearly doesn’t like him and apparently for no reason. This initial exchange is a little off putting.  She’s incredibly serious and essentially treating him like he’s on an interview, which he calls her out on. He makes a lot of bad joked about stalkers, which isn’t exactly appealing either. The two of them are like the odd-couple, except they’re not funny. This scene, thankfully, is cut short when they get the call that Kate’s body has been found.
Once they are at the scene, Det. Larsen starts assessing the situation and proves that he can actually get the job done. Lt. Davis realizes this and seems to loosen up a bit. In the middle of their investigation, the team is informed that another woman in an elevator had gasoline thrown on her by the same man in the same terrifying mask. Her name is Lisa and she has a few things in common with Kate. First, she is living in Kate’s old apartment. Second, she takes the same spin class. These two bits of information and a quick interview with one of Kate’s friends is enough to figure out that the stalker is actually a team made up of Kate’s ex-boyfriend and the girls’ spin instructor. Obviously, they did some investigating and got the information they needed, but the whole thing seemed a little rushed to me. It was also a little too easy. I suppose I can give them credit for adding a second stalker, because it’s something a little different, but it still seemed too effortless.  I think that they were really trying to get a little too much information into this first episode. They could have made two episodes out of this one and it probably would’ve been better at holding my attention.
On that note, let’s not forget about the other case involving the former college roommates. When we first meet Perry, he is in the hospital after being beaten up by Eric. He tries to play the victim by saying that Eric has falsely accused him of video-taping him and his girlfriend having sex and then putting it up on the internet. Lt. Davis believes Perry made the video and has been stalking Eric.
http://youtu.be/1kJjjKaZ1x8
In any case, I kind of wish that they had focused more on this case. It’s a different dynamic when the people involved know each other and talk on a regular basis. Eric is a big athletic type and Perry is a small nerdy type, yet Eric is terrified of Perry and claims he has ruined his life. The thing is, you never see any of it. We witness about one minute of disturbing conversation and Eric is visiting Lt. asking for her help. This is where they actually reeled me back in. Lt. Davis’ helps Eric by tracking down Perry and smacking him around a little bit and telling him to back off. He threatens to rat her out for smacking him around. She responds by telling him that no one would ever believe him. The best part about her smacking him around comes in the next scene. While she’s going through the routine of closing up her house, locking her windows, shutting the curtains, etc. we see Perry outside her window. She’s become his new target. Throughout the episode she has been dropping hints that she was already a stalking victim and now it’s happening again.  She just doesn’t know it yet.
On the other side of things, Det. Larsen ends his day with an encounter with his ex-wife, who has apparently moved to LA to get away from him. This conversation leads us to believe the Detective who investigates stalkers is a stalker himself. That’s a story line that could turn out to be great if it’s handled right.
As a whole Stalker, has potential. Â In the future, if they were to focus their attention on one story line instead of four I think it would be much better.
Rating: 6.5
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