Galaxy Gear -- the tech creepy weirdos use to stalk women, apparently

Good commercials can do several things. They can entertain you, endear you to the brand, and make you covet the product they are trying to sell. The new Samsung Galaxy Gear video does none of those things.

My colleague Alan Buckingham watched the video and declared Samsung Galaxy Gear wants to improve your social life. My impression is slightly different. The guy wearing the watch is a major creep with stalker tendencies. He gets the girl at the end of the video, sure, but to be honest, I fear for her safety. Here’s how the sinister events unfold.

The commercial starts with three people on a ski lift. It soon transpires they don’t know each other.

Aimee is pretty, blonde, and obviously concerned about being on a lift sandwiched between two guys, one of whom is wearing a watch he talks to. "Want to see something cool?" the watch wearer asks.

Aimee clearly doesn’t, but answers "sure". She’s trapped on a ski lift -- there’s nowhere for her to go.

"Give me your number" the guy demands. The way he looks at her makes it clear this guy is grade A psychopath. Nothing good can come from this.

Aimee, fearing for her life, gives him her number. Her real number.

He calls her. She answers. They are sitting a few inches apart.

"Hey pre-de ladee" he says, in a voice which should set off all sort of alarm bells, and tells her his name is Jack. She introduces herself. The ski lift stops and they get off. The other guy, who likes Aimee and is clearly a much safer choice of suitor (despite nearly killing someone below by accidentally dropping his skis on their head), looks sad.

Aimee then snowboards off, obviously pleased to be free of the creep. But no, he follows and takes 64 photos and videos of her -- 64 photos and videos of a stranger he’s just met -- before arriving to confront her. "Oh hi Jack", Aimee says, pretending not to have seen her newly acquired stalker despite the fact he was clearly close enough to touch her the whole time she was snowboarding, because if he hadn’t been all of his photos of her would have been tiny dots (the Gear doesn’t have the massive zoom required to capture such clear shots) and at one point early on she must have been pretty much staring straight into his wrist.

"We can do more" Jack says, disturbingly. And they snowboard off. Possibly together, or maybe he’s just following her. Again. "See you soon Jack," Aimee eventually says before finally making good her escape.

Cut to a busy bar that evening. Aimee and Jack -- who is watching one of his videos of Aimee on the Galaxy Gear-- bump into each other and Jack drops his phone on the floor. Aimee pretends to be pleased to see him, he pretends to be surprised to see her. The other guy from the ski lift looks concerned to see them together. I get the impression he’s worried for Aimee’s safety.

Aimee goes to pick up Jack’s phone. "Don’t worry, I’ve got it", Jack says and activates the Gear’s phone finder. His phone rings, and despite being in a noisy bar, he locates the dropped device by sound. "Let me get us some drinks" Jack says, not taking no for an answer. He then takes a photo of a bottle of wine with his Gear for no reason. While at the bar he gets a call from Aimee who walked off seconds ago and must still be visible in the room. Presumably she’s calling to make her excuses and wants to do so from a distance.

The other guy, who is standing around with two glasses of wine also gets a call. In fishing out his phone, he drops a glass. We don’t know who is calling him, but clearly it’s not Aimee since she’s phoning Jack. Hopefully it’s the police responding to his emergency call. Don’t worry Aimee, help is on the way!

"I’ll be right there" Jack says chillingly to Aimee on his wrist. She’s not getting away that easily.

They meet up outside and Jack hands her a glass of wine and using the Gear he starts some music playing. Aimee wants to know where the tinny tune is coming from and Jack mumbles about it coming from his phone which, inexplicably he has left lying some distance away from them. Aimee snuggles up to him, presumably feeling woozy from the Rohypnol he slipped into her wine, and Jack stares ahead and does this…

Where are the police? Hang on Aimee! Hopefully our hero, who downed his one remaining glass of wine for Dutch courage, is coming to the rescue…

As disturbing as the video is, you can add a whole new layer of weirdness to the proceedings by watching it with the YouTube captions turned on, something I’d definitely recommend doing.