"If you're me, who the hell am I?"

This seems to be a popular trope this year. At least, it happened in both of the TV shows I am currently following. I think I first saw it on screen in a movie from 1987, where it was done with black magic, and the Devil was involved. It comes up often enough in SF/fantasy, what with alien sleeper agents, clones, android duplicates, shapeshifters, etc. And it's especially popular in TV shows involving secrets, mysteries, and conspiracies. Even the identity and nature of the main character(s) is in question.

One of the shows is "This Is Not My Life", one of the best SF series I've ever watched (so far...one more episode to go in the season). It's set in what seems to be a dystopian near-future. A man wakes up and has no memory of his life, though people claim to be his family, neighbors, etc. At first everything around him seems fairly normal (a pleasant, peaceful suburb), but as the series goes on, the paranoia and SF elements take over. It's a bit like the "Prisoner" or a reverse "Nowhere Man", except it's real and the hints do build into something that makes sense (as opposed to being a metaphorical surrealistic question with no answer). I love the characters, and the ambiguity of whether they will help or hinder the protagonist. Things happen, people change... unlike some other shows I could mention. It's very tightly written. I don't get the sense of some episodes being mere filler.

"Haven", on the other hand...

"Haven" is the other show I'm watching. Supposedly based off of a Stephen King story (or at least using it as a starting point), it does involve supernatural events in a small town in Maine. So far so good. And the opening credits sequence is wonderfully creepy. But then it devolved into a boring Freak-of-the-Week/X-Files ripoff formula. Gah! And too many characters played the "I won't tell you anything useful because then we'd have nothing to do for the next season" card. No no no no no! What's sad is that it really does have potential. Towards the end of the season, it did start to get better. I'm glad it got renewed for a second season, but they really need to focus on the interesting elements. The protagonists have to take a more active role in investigating What the Hell is Going on Here!!! part, rather than go chasing after yet another semi-innocent person whose weird superpower is killing people. And they have interesting supporting characters. We need to see more of them (besides having them drop cryptic hints or giving each other meaningful glances). Well, here's hoping...

So it's October already! 10-10-(20)10! Argh! Yeah.