For Johnny Smith (Anthony Michael Hall) zoning out isn't an indication of exhaustion, boredom or post coital satisfaction so those around him don't take it personally they take it seriously. You see when Johnny zones he doesn't head for the ozone but The Dead Zone a spot neither here nor there that allows him to see things no one else can. Some of it ain't pretty. "The Dead Zone" is based on a Stephen King novel and the film of the same name directed by David Cronenberg. ***

Johnny has the world in his pocket; he's about to get married, loves his teaching job and looks to a bright but unknown future. He's in a car accident that almost takes his life. After years in a coma, Johnny wakens to find that his fiancé Sarah (Nicole de Boer)believed he would never recover from his coma and has married the local Sheriff (Chris Bruno), his mother has died leaving her money to a religious university and in the control of its founder the Rev Gene Purdy(David Ogden Stiers) who administered the estate in his name AND he knows the future because of his trauma he can SEE it by touching other people. Johnny helps solve crimes with this ability but one thing that he sees is that a potential senate candidate Greg Stillson (Sean Patrick Flanery) may lead the United States into a unprovoked nuclear war. Sometimes knowing the future can be a curse but Johnny also finds sometimes he can actually make a difference for good in people's lives. ***

The fifth and final season of "The Dead Zone" continues to examine the story arc involving Stillson but also examines a number of other shorter story arcs. Unfortunately, the final season doesn't tie up all the major story arcs which is a pity. USA network spend most of its promotional money for other shows such as "Monk". Leaving your fans hanging leaves a bad taste in fans' mouths and was the wrong thing to do here. ***

Regardless, the final season of "The Dead Zone" was stronger than the fourth season but not quite as strong as the first two. The show seemed to lose a bit of steam and direction by the third season of the series. Nevertheless, it's still a worthwhile series that is well written, directed and acted. ---

Image & Sound:

As with previous seasons, the final season looks extremely good with sharp image quality, colors and clarity. The audio also sounds extremely good with good use of directional sound effects particularly during action. ---

Got to be honest here I'm still mad at Lion's Gate for only providing fans with the unaired pilot in a limited edition disc that you had to send away for. The result is that fans who came to the show late (like myself) weren't able to see the pilot episode so Lion's Gate still owes us. Heck, it should have been included as an extra HERE if nothing else. That said, Lion's Gate does its usual nice job with the special features on "The Dead Zone". ***

We have some nice commentary tracks on this set featuring the cast and crew covering everything from the challenges they faced in making a particular episode to changes that had to be made to the script to accommodate the limitations of time, location and budget. Unfortunately unlike the early seasons we don't get a commentary track for every episode but, perhaps, less is more in this case as generally speaking the commentary tracks we do get here are better than a lot of the previous sets. ***

We also get two featurettes "Dead Zone Walking: Making the Move to Montreal" which covers the change of locations for the series and the impact it had (it was shot in British Columbia for the previous seasons). The second one "All Aboard: Filming 'The Dead Zone' on a Train" focuses on one particular episode and the challenges that the film crew and cast had shooting on a real train, the confined spaces and, most importantly, what to do when the coffee sucks. ---

Final Words: