NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) – With "Lost" over, it's no surprise that networks are looking for the next big mysterious thing. "Persons Unknown" has big aspirations, and comes with a good pedigree -- here, Christopher McQuarrie ("The Usual Suspects" screenwriter) is the J.J. Abrams in the room. Or at least NBC hopes so.
But the thing about kicking off a less-than-straightforward narrative like "Persons" is that the viewer most likely to get fully absorbed in the show, immediately looking for clues (why is the key in the Bible? Why is the hotel lobby playing "Beautiful Dreamer?" Will this be important next season?) is also the viewer who's been burned the most by such setups.
"Persons" has a creepy hotel, a ghost town and murderous fortune cookie messages, but it's still less must-see TV than "there had better be a darned good reason for this" TV. Viewers have to go in with not just a suspension of disbelief, but a suspension of the cynicism that maybe the creators haven't fully thought this thing through yet.
It's premature to speculate, however. For now, "Persons" is delightfully weird and foreboding: A young San Francisco mom is kidnapped and wakes, locked in her room, in the Downtown Hotel. In short order, six others join her in a deserted small town nestled in the mountains. The connections between them are unclear, and somebody's not sharing everything he or she knows. Is there a mole? Who's watching behind the security cameras? Why can't they leave? Is it more or less bizarre when Chinese cooks and a hotel night manager show up for work?
With luck (and good ratings) answers will be forthcoming. For now, we're left with a lot of setup and atmosphere. But atmosphere and setup are easy; following through and making it all worth the audience's while is the tricky part. McQuarrie has laid out an intriguing tableau with care and precision and invited viewers to pull up a chair. What remains now is to see whether what he's dishing out is enough to catch on with the masses.
No comments:
Post a Comment