Main cast: Andreas Apergis (Dr Stuart Lang), Stellina Rusich (Joan Lang), and David Bowie (The Host)
Director: Bruce M Smith

Replacements is very loosely based on Lisa Tuttle’s story of the same name, and a part of me will always wonder whether these authors knew what would happen when their agents handed over their stories to these people.

Maybe it’d be something closer to: “Oh, I heard Ridley Scott is involved in the show… but wait, the show is actually made by the same folks behind The Hitchhiker? Can I just pretend this never happened?”

While the basic premise here is the same as that of the source material, this one ramps things up to a more apocalyptic degree.

Dr Stuart Lang and his wife Joan are unable to have children, and this hits them hard as more and more people around them are popping out brats.

Things take a turn for the weird and creepy kind when Stuart notices that the women in the hospital are acting strange, and then his wife begins nursing this weird rat-like creature. These creatures drive women’s instinct to mother and nurture over the edge, it seems, weaponizing these women in what seems like a means to take over the planet.

The whole thing comes off as silly, of course, as there is no way a show of such limited budget can ever pull this one off, especially in a single episode that still needs to waste time on the obligatory boink scene. It ends up being a pretty shallow portrayal of the war of the sexes without offering much excitement or even a satisfying conclusion.

However, in the context of this show. this episode boasts an adequate performances from the cast members and the execution is coherent. It’s an okay episode, even if it’s not much of anything else, and merely being an okay episode, for The Hunger, is always something to be happy about!