  You know, it's rather hard to watch crime shows with guest stars. It takes away a large portion of the surprise. Take, for instance, tonight's episode of urlLink The Dead Zone . I knew from last week's preview that it was going to be about a school shooting. And, being a Sopranos fan, I also knew that it would guest-star Robert Iler (AKA Anthony Junior, A.J., Tony's son, whatever). Coming into the show, I was left with two options: 1) A.J. would turn out to be the shooter. 2) A.J. would look like the shooter up until the end when it would be revealed that he was, in fact, just tragically misunderstood. (Please don't remind me that A.J. and Robert Iler are different people. I know. I just choose to ignore.
) So, tonight's episode: Anthony Michael Hall goes to his son's play and has a vision informing him that there will soon be a school shooting. He and a blonde woman I have never seen before (hey, I'm a recreational watcher) spend the first half of the ep rounding up all the potential kids who might want to raise hell. This turns out to be largely inconclusive. Soon thereafter, someone calls in a bomb threat. I have some fundamental issues with this episode. For one, the school authorities are pretty generic Hollywood teachers: they're authoritarian, they cling to the rules in the face of adversity, and they have no appreciable sense of humor. One might think they had never been young. One might write them off as simply sadists who had gone into education for the sole purpose of tormenting others.
One, no, strike that, I get the impression that the people who write most television shows had bad experiences in high school. For this I am sorry. But portraying all teachers and administrators as the rule-worshipping enemy is not the solution to anyone's problem. Are there status-quo adhering teachers and administrators? Certainly. Do people join the profession just so they can bully others?
Jury's out. That's not why I'm doing it. We're all going to continue to be people and teenagers are going to continue to try to find themselves in high school and beyond. I would like to see what most Hollywood writers would do if they were put in charge of a high school. How would that be portrayed? Would they still need to slash their peers with the stigma of counter-cool?
But I digress.
A.J.
later turns out to be relatively violent, and this is bad. Even Anthony Michael Hall thinks it's bad, and he paints his customary pained and haunted look back onto his face. Does anyone else miss urlLink The Breakfast Club ? AMH doesn't, however, think that A.J. is "the shooter," and now we enter into the superbly twisty third act. I won't go into what happens next, but I honestly thought it could have been a little bit more interesting than it was. If you have my number and you want to ask me what I think should have happened, give me a call. Or, alternatively, post your thoughts below and we can all argue about it. Let me get a few things straight. I like urlLink The Dead Zone . I don't watch it on any regular basis, but I have nothing really against it. And I like Anthony Michael Hall, although the conceit of visions that preclude him from ever having to look at inconsequential things like "evidence" does seem a little too easy. But this episode borders on the ridiculous. Until the last few minutes, it's practically worthy of urlLink Boston Public , and AMH and Stephen King are above that.
So is Robert Iler, actually. And honestly, if you could touch things and see the future, do you really think you would want to solve crimes? I, for one, thought that AMH's unique visions were better utilized last week when he spent a good portion of the episode scoping out girls his friend thought were cute at a wedding. But I also enjoy urlLink Elimidate , so take my advice with all necessary grains of salt. 
