Every Haunting Hour Ever #67: I'm Not Martin

Season: 4
Episode: 1
Original Airdate: October 4, 2014
Director: Neill Fearnley
Writer(s): Mitch Watson

Hello there ladies and gentlemen! This is Azu here and welcome to season four of The Haunting Hour! So as I mentioned in my last review, this season is a lot shorter compared to season three. In fact, this season seems to be the black sheep of the series, as it only has about ten episodes. Why you may ask? Well, my best guess is that when The Hub (the channel that The Haunting Hour was on) became Discovery Family, they decided to let the episodes that were finished air before presumably dropping the show from the network, as it didn't seem to fit their new image.

Now unlike the other season openers, which were all two parters, this one is a standalone episode. Is it any good? Well, let's find out!

Sean is laid up in the hospital with tonsillitis on Halloween, and ends up back in 1952 where the doctors and nurses mistake him for a boy named Martin Charles who needs his rotting foot removed.

One of the things I liked was the atmosphere. Much like in Ghostly Stare, this episode has a strong emphasis on atmosphere. I think this comes from the way the episode is shot, paced, and scored. Not only that, but the doctors and nurses in the 1950's hospital act like everything is normal instead of acting like over the top, joker-esque characters, which I think really contributes to the unsettling atmosphere. Because of this, I feel that this makes the more disturbing and intense scenes all the more effective.

The other thing I liked about the episode was the tension. Compared to some of the other episodes in this series, the danger seems rather mundane. However, the episode still treats it as if it were legitimately life threatening and because of this, the tension is really strong, which helped me stay invested throughout most of the episode.

If I had one complaint with this episode, it would be the ending. So the episode decides to go with the whole, "It was all a dream but not really" type of ending. For me, this feels like a cheap and lazy way to end a story most of the time and here, it's no exception. Now the season two episode Sick, which I praised the hell out of, has a similar ending. Looking back however, I don't feel it's as cheap because at the very least, they do try to put their own spin on it. But in I'm Not Martin, they don't really do anything that creative with it and while it didn't completely ruin the episode, I felt like it was a rather weak note to end on.

Overall, I'm Not Martin isn't actually that bad for a standalone season opener and for what it is, it's actually quite entertaining. If you can stomach the cheap ending, I think you might enjoy this episode.

Overall Grade: B