Julie's Review of Cupid Schmoopid 

In Boston, a crazy Cupid is shooting his arrows into the male halves of couples. BPD and the morgue crew are hot on the trail. Meanwhile, three couples make plans for celebrating Valentine's Day. Will the killer be caught, and will the plans go off as expected?

Strengths

Storyline: The Cupid storyline in this episode was on the whole well written. It was a clever tie-in to the Valentine's Day "holiday".  The light-hearted Valentine's plans also made a great secondary story, particularly since for each of the three couples, the plans went awry.   

Dialogue: Madambeth and  NCCJFAN provided lively dialogue, delivering an especially funny (and tacky) appearance by Berman. His lines were so on-target that it was easy to picture the actor delivering them.

Emotional Growth:  There was some interesting emotional development in this episode. Woody tries to convince the world that he's not sick, fighting hard to work his way through the case with a nasty cold or flu. In the end, when his Valentine's plans are canceled, he confesses that he'd really hoped to make his and Jordan's first Valentine's Day as a couple special. Bug displays good growth when he and Lily no longer have Valentine's night alone. He embraces a night together with his two best girls, something that endears him to both Lily and the VS7 audience. And Kate and Nigel…what more can be said other than the fact that Kate refers to their evening as a first date.

Artwork: Harbor Runner once again supplied incredible artwork, trying out a new art "venue". The am Boston photo was innovative and clever, and was obviously a lot of work. The fact that there were so many time-pertinent headlines and the additional picture of the Patriots made the artwork all the more amazing.

Music: Musical selections were extremely appropriate for this themed episode. There was a variety in the moods of the selected songs, from the amusing Stupid Cupid, to Frank Sinatra's My Funny Valentine, to the completely scene-appropriate My Bloody Valentine, each well complementing their individual scenes.

Continuity: There were many references to past episodes within the body of the script. Some of Berman's many comments were lines from the television series. And there were plentiful allusions, such as the sword swallower in bubble bath incident and Nigel's Tree Hugger's Guide reference.

Favorite Quote: Besides, the only glands I’m touching right now are these. The rest…She glances towards his tented boxers…can stand down.

Areas for Improvement

There were only a few items that perhaps could have been improved. The initial scene-setting picture was very difficult to view because the scene was so dark. Understandably, the event happened at night, but it took a couple of adjustments to view the picture optimally. Additionally in the picture of Woody and Berman on stakeout, the perspective seemed a bit off. With all the other high quality artwork, however, these minor "flaws" did not take away from the episode. The one other thing that seemed a bit off was the ease with which the group figured out that Cupid was holding the couple at his childhood home. It hardly took any thought at all.

This Virtual Season 7 episode wrapped up in a bow (and arrow) and delivered to us by writers Madambeth and NCCJFAN and artist Harbor Runner provided Crossing Jordan fans with a an appealing story and some light-hearted fun and romance. I'll give this great effort 3.5 scalpels out of 4.