The season starts with Hobson (who has been out of work from the stock broker business for a while now) finding the hotel room he has been staying in on fire. Suddenly homeless yet again, Hobson runs into a bit of good luck when the local bar he frequents ends up under his name (as thanks for some help he performed on the paper's behest) and he discovers an old apartment above the place. Both Chuck and Marissa quite their jobs and join Hobson in managing the bar, which leaves Gary with ample time to take care of the various errands tomorrow's paper hands him. This also nicely fixes any complications of Gary trying to hold down some kind of job or worry about income since most of his daily activities involve running from one side of the city to the other saving random strangers' lives.
Like I said, most episodes in Early Edition: The Second Season are one-off adventures that introduce new characters specific to that particular day's events and that's it. Episodes like "March in Time" and "Angels and Devils" focus on cultural issues like racism, freedom of speech and troubled inner-city kids, while others like "Romancing the Throne" and "Show Me the Monet" don't have any major messages to give out but act as nice adventures for Gary and his friends to work on. But there are a few that have some lasting consequences.
In "The Fourth Carpathian," Gary goes missing and his parents start receiving the paper. In the last season, Bernie, Gary's dad (William Devance), had already happened upon Gary's unusual morning deliveries, but Bernie can't keep the secret from his wife, Lois (Tess Harper) when Bernie ends up getting himself thrown in jail while trying to stop a man from jumping off of a building. So now, both of Gary's parents know about his secret, and they end up showing up a couple more times throughout the season to give Gary some help. Another fairly major episode is "The Return of Crumb" where Detective Crumb (Ron Dean), who dogged Gary's heels quite a few times last season, nears retirement, but is being set up by an Internal Affairs director who is trying to drum up publicity. By the end of the episode, Crumb starts to work as a bartender at Gary's bar, but Gary still doesn't let the former cop in on the secret.
Another good episode includes "Hot Time in the Old Town" where Gary gets knocked unconscious and wakes up just before the 1871 Great Chicago Fire. Not only does he work to figure out what is going on, but he also tries to stop the eventful fire from burning most of the city down. The season wraps up with "Second Sight" where Marissa thinks her sight is returning and may be able to help Gary save Chuck's life since the other friend witnessed a mob-hit and has disappeared. Unfortunately, this season finale also ends with one of Gary's main support characters leaving the show.
I enjoy this show. There are times when it is a bit formulaic and sometimes the acting seems a bit over the top, but its a nice, family-friendly series that doesn't date itself so badly that younger audiences will avoid it. While this season doesn't seem to be as good as the first, it is still enjoyable. If you liked the show when it first aired and picked up the previous season, then definitely look into this one. Unfortunately, a lack of special features or even a "Play All" disc menu option make things a bit annoying, but not too much so.
