- Title: Perception – Defective
- tv.com: link
When a world-renown violinist with early-onset Parkinson’s Disease nearly dies in front of Dr. Pierce (Eric McCormack) from his malfunctioning implanted battery-pack brain simulator which controls his shakes and tremors the brain specialist takes the case. With Kate (Rachael Leigh Cook) busy with an unrelated homicide, and totally uninterested in a product liability case, Daniel gets the unexpected assistance of a gung-ho Donnie (Scott Wolf) in what soon becomes a murder investigation. The company who produces the device denies any responsibility and sends the pair after a former employee (Richard Topol) now working for a competitor who asks for Pierce’s help for a similiar device to help patients with Schizophrenia.
Pierce and to doctor use the brain simulator on an assault victim (Julie Ann Emery) to jumpstart her brain and get her to wake from her coma and lead them on the path to discovering who killed her husband (Alexis Denisof) and caused her seizure. When the woman admits to accidentally killing her husband during her seizure Daniel and Donnie investigate a rumored affair between the dead man his secretary (Whitney Hoy) but what they find is far more complicated and involves the bio-tech company stooge (Jud Tylor) who was the one actually sleeping with the victim’s husband and is responsible for all the misery.
Although the set-up means we don’t get much of Cook, McCormack and Wolf have fun with the odd couple pairing. It’s not something I want to see become a trend, but for a single episode it works well as a change of pace. “Defective” offers Pierce with a familiar hallucination when the doctor begins seeing a far more together version of himself offering assistance (and snide remarks) over the course of the episode. We also get the return of Fleckner (DJ Qualls) and a B-story between Lewicki (Arjay Smith) who nearly ruins his burgeoning relationship with the lovely Eva (Anabelle Acosta) before it really begins.
