THE INSIDE: New Girl in Town

By: Jason Davis
Review Date: Sunday, June 12, 2005

Tim Minear may not be a household name like Chris Carter or Joss Whedon, but he has a number of qualities in common with both his former employers. Minear, like the wave of multi-talented writer-producer-directors spawned by Fox Television over the last 15 years, is a master of the television medium. Now, after two short-lived stints running the late lamented cult classics FIREFLY and WONDERFALLS, the former ANGEL executive producer finally has his own "created by" credit on the Fox summer series THE INSIDE--start praying to the Nielsen gods.

The series gets off to a magnificent start, quickly introducing the Los Angeles-based FBI Violent Crimes Unit led by the somewhat sinister Virgil Webster. Arriving at a crack house where utility men have discovered a mutilated corpse, Webster is irritated by the absence of his principal profiler, Alvarez, only to discover that she has become the ninth victim of the serial killer the team was hunting. Though a similar shock was once employed by ER to off an intern, Minear's application of the twist becomes even more engaging when the facts of the profiler's death are elucidated by her replacement, Quantico rookie Rebecca Locke. In a masterfully edited scene, Locke explains her thoughts on her predecessor's murder to Webster while the other members of the team investigate Locke's dossier for clues explaining her assignment to their team. While Locke details Alvarez's unsuitability for the predator's style, her new co-workers are illustrating her own potential as the perfect bait. Simultaneously, the manipulative nature of Webster, Web to his team, is being carefully set-up for a payoff at the episode's conclusion and extensive exploration in the hopefully long-running series.


The plot is a tightly twisted course of reversals and revelations that, in the final estimation, serve more as a looking glass through which to view the characters of Web, Locke, and self-appointed (or Web designated?) team conscience Paul Ryan. By the hour's end, all three have been clearly defined, with ample story-generating potential layered into their troubled backstories. As Web alludes to when confronted about his machinations regarding Locke, these characters' pain is what makes them valuable tools in their war on evil. The acting is top notch, with Minear recurring regulars Adam Baldwin (FIREFLY, ANGEL) and Katie Finneran (WONDERFALLS) being joined by a number of interesting new faces. Veteran actor Peter Coyote brings an interesting ambiguity to Virgil Webster, who seems, in many ways, to be just as dangerous as the monsters he pursues. The stayed performance of Rachel Nichols often seems as if she'll give in to the well of emotion hidden behind her eyes, but the closed-off part of her suggested by her tragic history remains an untapped potential for future tales.

The devil is in the details, and Minear tips his hand in a dialogue between Web and Ryan. When the former remarks on the latter's namesake, the Biblical tax assessor turned evangelist Paul of Tarsis, Minear suggests the subtlety with which the show has been designed. Names are important, and students of renaissance literature will likely have little surprise when Virgil Webster leads his team straight into hell.