{alltv} Here comes NBC's main 'Event' for fall, time-shifting and all

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WOODLAND HILLS, Calif. — An SUV screeches out of a garage with an FBI agent chasing after it, shooting out the rear windshield. Behind the wheel is Sean Walker (Jason Ritter), an Everyman on the hunt for his girlfriend and the conspiracy behind her sudden disappearance in NBC's The Event, due Monday at 9 ET/PT.

It's the network's biggest priority in rebuilding mode this fall, with seven new series designed to lift NBC out of the Nielsen gutter, where it has languished for the past six TV seasons.

But the show — a densely serialized thriller that demands weekly viewing — also is a dying breed on TV, as evidenced by the exits of Lost, 24 and Heroes.

Also in the Event mix: President Elias Martinez (Blair Underwood), facing an assassination attempt — "This president's very politically savvy; he's idealistic but not naive at all," Underwood says — and Sophia Maguire (Laura Innes), a myserious woman leading a group of detainees at the North Pole whom the president is intent on releasing.

"Her focus is protecting this group of people in a primal way," Innes says. "She does everything she can to stay in a moral high ground. But if she needs to go beyond that, she will."

At the center is Ritter's character, who — as he's preparing to propose marriage to his girlfriend, Leila (Sarah Roemer), while on a cruise in the Caribbean — is summoned to rescue a drowning victim and quickly sees his world collapse.

Creator Nick Wauters says he wanted to create a hybrid series — part thriller, part political intrigue, part love story, with a dash of sci-fi — centered on an atypical hero "who's not Jack Bauer, just a regular guy."

Says Ritter: "A lot of characters are often motivated by anger or revenge or hate," but his character, Walker, is "motivated by his love for his fiancée."

Without many skills, "most of the guys in these parts, they kind of know what they're doing. Even if they have to do a lot of thinking on the fly, they have some kind of expertise." But Walker is more of an unwitting bystander, the type of Hitchcockian hero played by Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant, who must escape the bad guys while proving his innocence. Ritter looked to Harrison Ford's portrayal in The Fugitive.

A series of abrupt time-shifts — from present day to several points in the past — can be disorienting in Monday's pilot episode, but producers are moving away from that device and will focus much of the action on the present day, employing flashbacks mostly to flesh out characters rather than plot.

But a larger issue is getting viewers to commit to a densely plotted, heavily serialized story after recent efforts such as ABC's FlashForward or NBC's Heroes petered out after promising starts.

Underwood says producers are "acutely aware of the mistakes of the recent past of other shows that have gotten people's attention and then let them hang in the wind."

Wauters concedes potential fans probably feel as if "they came out of a relationship and just got burnt," so there's "a little resistance" to the concept. "We definitely need to convince people they should invest an hour each week and watch the show."

Wauters says he has carefully plotted every major element of the show and believes Ritter's boyish charm enables him to handle action scenes and pack an emotional punch that gives the audience a rooting interest.

Ritter's biggest role was as a series regular on CBS' Joan of Arcadia, as the title character's brother, who was in a wheelchair. Playing an action hero is a change-up. "I am physically exhausted, but it's great, it's exciting," he says. In scenes being filmed for the series' third episode, Ritter jumps out of a car trunk in a garage to escape FBI agents on his trail after he's framed for murder.

"Growing up, I always liked running around and making things up with my friends and pretending to be guys like this, or ninjas, so it's a lot of fun to just sort of pretend as an adult."

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