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SEASON 1, EPISODE 7, JULY 14, 2004
SHOW DESCRIPTION: For my American readers, The Collector is sort of a ripoff of Brimstone (don't blame Canada - we stole Cold Case from them, and at least The Collector is comparable in quality to the show that inspired it, a claim that Cold Case can't make).
A quick rundown for the uninitiated: in the 1300s, the show's protagonist and main character, Morgan Pym, fell in love with a servant girl - and when she got the Plague, he was enraged enough at God to sell his soul to the devil in exchange for ten good years with the woman he loved. After she died, Pym was so desperate to avoid eternity in Hell that he agreed to be a collector - one charged with collecting souls sold to the devil. What makes this show different from Brimstone is that Pym has 48 hours to help the person bound for Hell to find redemption.
OVERALL IMPRESSIONS: When I first read the preview of the episode, which indicated that a reporter spends quite a bit of time hassling Morgan Pym about his being in the proximity of a series of unexplained events, I was afraid that Gabrielle wasn't going to get a lot of face time. Thankfully, I was wrong, and better still this episode does not come close to the dreaded "worth seeing only if you're a fan of Gabrielle's" category. The episode is top-notch, can be enjoyed even if you've never seen another episode of the show, and features an ending that you're not likely to forget for a long time. This is right up there with The Immortal episode "Forest for the Trees" on my list of the most entertaining items ever erased from The Milk Carton, although in terms of overall quality this episode belongs on top.
KUDOS TO GABRIELLE: The easiest way to start this would be to quote my review from Outer Limits episode "The Tipping Point:" "In episodes such as these there is no guarantee that good acting will allow the viewer to be fooled by a plot twist, but it's almost a certainty that a bad actor will give it away. Gabrielle takes a key role and handles it more than well enough to keep you guessing until the very last scene."
I was able to guess, more or less, how this episode ended (unlike the solid burning I took by the aforementioned Outer Limits episode) - but I would argue that this episode features some of Gabrielle's best dramatic acting in any TV episode I've seen of hers. Within about 45 minutes, she manages to perfectly portray a wide series of emotions and, in essence flawlessly plays two characters in one role / episode. This is part of what impresses me so much about her work - she can play, with equal skill, a humorous servant of the devil (in "Forest for the Trees") or a serious person who has sold her soul to him. I can think of a few actresses that could have played one role or the other about as well as she did, but none who could have done both as well. Now compare these two roles to her work as Lacey Burrows in Corner Gas, and you should be able to see why I created this site.
NOTE: The Collector series has different actors playing the devil from episode to episode, and I have to say that in this one the role was handled beautifully by Bill Mondy. I know nothing about his other work, but he sure made a hell of an impressive devil (pun basically unintentional) in this episode.