Article first published as INTRUDERS Review on Seat42F.
BBC America’s
latest original series (see my past reviews for gripes on the fact that
this network even has original shows, albeit often-good ones, while
hardly airing anything British) is INTRUDERS. A dark, dreary, plodding
sci-fi / horror drama, the series is about a secret society that cheats
death by intruding into other people’s bodies and taking control. With
weird, uneven pacing, the show seeks to set a scary tone, but perhaps
hits it a little too much on the head. It might pair well with Doctor
Who, its partner on Saturday nights, but Who audiences might very well
decide it’s not smart enough to be worth their time.
The
pilot of INTRUDERS is not at all a good pilot. I know what the premise
is because I’ve read media materials, but the plot is not evident from
the start. One could conceivably watch the whole first hour and still be
confused at the point of the show. All we see are people running
around, being shot, and acting in unexplained manners, never really
showing us what they are up to.
After
awhile, you’ll realize that the main protagonist seems to be Jack
Whelan (John Simm, Life on Mars, Doctor Who), a former cop whose wife,
Amy (Mira Sorvino,
Psych, Falling Skies), suddenly goes missing midway through episode
one. He soon becomes obsessed with finding her, as one does, but avoids
the traditional routes one might take to locate a missing person. His
story thickens more when an old friend, Gary Fischer (Tory Kittles, True
Detective, Sons of Anarchy), shows up to seek his help with a murder
investigation. Intelligent viewers will assume there is connection
between the case and Amy, though the series doesn’t seek to draw a
thread between them yet.
In the
second major subplot, a vicious assassin named Richard Shepherd (James
Frain, Grimm, The Tudors) slays his way around, searching for a
nine-year-old girl named Madison (Millie Bobby Brown, Once Upon a Time
in Wonderland). It is likely safe to assume that Madison is the current
host of a malevolent being who hurts poor, defenseless animals. This
begs the question, is Richard, despite his brutality, a good guy out to
save the world? And if not, should we care about Madison?
The
thing is, I don’t care. The installment jumps around aimlessly, leaping
between characters without direction and rarely giving us anything
cohesive to work with. It actually feels like there are more players and
elements than there are because of the disorganization. Rather than set
up a structure for what should be a long-running mystery adventure
show, we get a jumble of unrelated scenes with people that are not
memorable. It’s really hard to follow INTRUDERS.
That’s
a shame because the cast, well-seasoned, is good, if badly used. Frain
plays bad beautifully, as we’ve seen from him before, and Simm has what
it takes to be a leading man, if the writers would deign to give him the
material. I like Sorvino, even though her smaller part is mostly
confined to acting unattractively crazy, and Kittles seems a fine enough
side kick.
Brown, though young, is
distracting. It’s not that she doesn’t play creepy well, it’s just too
much, her supposedly deceptive character hitting all the stereotypical
notes. In this, she matches the tone that the score and lighting seek to
set, which is overtly creepy so that no one can mistake it for anything
else. Sadly, this is not a sign of a high-quality program.
I’m
told other episodes of INTRUDERS get better and the story really takes
off by week three. The problem is, a lot of viewers won’t stick around
that long. I haven’t decided if I will. Delivering a pilot that is poor
on so many counts makes it hard to get excited about the series, and
thus fails in its mission. INTRUDERS is a false start for the
up-and-coming network.
INTRUDERS airs Saturdays at 10 p.m. ET on BBC America.
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