Main cast: Lori Petty (Lisette), Daniela Akerblom (Danielle), and David Bowie (The Host)
Director: John L’Écuyer

The Hunger gives the late Karl Edward Wagner a dubious nod in Double, turning his short story into a thing of… well, fortunately, this one isn’t too bad.

Lisette knows that she has a double out there. Perhaps “out somewhere” may be a more accurate description, as her double is from the past—the ghost… or something… of someone in the past that will no doubt want to take over her body. Can she beat that thing and retain autonomy of her own faculties?

This one is different from most of the episodes in that it features a lesbian protagonist, and perhaps because it wasn’t enlightened times yet back when the show first aired, there are no soft core boinking scenes as a result.

This lack is actually a good thing, if you ask me, as it allows the story to develop properly without having to take unnecessary detours into time-wasting half-baked “explicit but not really” scenes that add nothing to the overall arc.

Lori Petty plays two roles here, and for the most part, she’s actually alright and not too grating like she normally is in her roles. Hence, the episode is pretty watchable in a “montage of flashbacks and scenes of the present” way.

This episode does have its share of issues, though. The main one is that there isn’t a twist at the end as much as, at last, an explanation of what has just happened. This means that the entire episode is just things happening, without me having a clue as to what is happening, until toward the end when the show deigns to clue me in.

It’s not like the episode can be watched again to get and appreciate any clue that is inserted as some kind of foreshadowing, as it isn’t that clever. So, the whole thing just feels like lazy, even incompetent, storytelling.

Also, is it just me or the show now has some kind of mandate to use that fake, cheesy CGI lights shooting and flowing everywhere thing in the end of every episode?

Anyway, this isn’t a particularly memorable or standout episode, but it doesn’t make me cringe or go WTF at it, so I guess it’s a good thing. For an episode of The Hunger, that is. Context is important when it comes to generally meh shows like this!