Main cast: Judy Morris (Veronica), David Wenham (George), Pippa Grandison (Karen), and Bryan Brown (The Host)
Director: Lynn Hegarty

George and Karen are in love. He has a big house, and he is a successful businessman (he’s her boss). Plus, this is the younger David Wenham we’re talking about, before his nose completely took over all the real estate in his face. What’s not to want in a man, right?

Well, George’s mother is a malicious kind of crazy. She talks to the dolls in her house—one represents her late husband that cheated on her repeatedly, one more is supposed to her husband’s mistress, and there is also one for her detested mother-in-law—when she’s not controlling what time her son must come home from work. Needlessly to say, she doesn’t like Karen at all. Hence, when she has George invite Karen over, it may just be that Mommy Dearest has nefarious plans for Karen over dinner…

Okay, I kid. The Test is both the most creepy and most boring episode so far in this series. It’s creepy because it has a great Psycho-esque atmosphere with Judy Morris chewing scenery marvelously like she is the muse for VC Andrews or something. The prominence of the dollhouse lends to the expectation that maybe there is something supernatural about it.

Well, until the episode ends and I am still left scratching my head over the denouement. It’s a pretty anticlimactic one, although it’s nice to see George grow a pair now that he has a new mother in his life, and the ending is a bit of a head-scratcher. The latter is because the nature of the dollhouse is never fully elaborated on, so I am left only with guesses as to what could have happened in that scene. Frankly, this episode isn’t that great of a Psycho-wannabe thing to be worth a few re-watches just to get that ending.

The Test is an episode in which the cast elevates the otherwise subpar material into something far more watchable than it otherwise would be. The whole thing isn’t that bad, so long as one doesn’t mind the disappointing payoff.