Article first published as HUNTERS Review on Seat42F.
I just finished watching the pilot of
SyFy’s new series, HUNTERS, moments ago, and I’ve already forgotten just
about everything about it. It is messy, gratuitously gory, starring
characters that I just don’t care about, and with a premise that seems
underdeveloped. Harsh, perhaps, but this is a show that could have used a
truthful wakeup call before going to air. Let me refresh my memory here
and I’ll break down the issues.
Based on the Alien Hunter novels by
Whitley Strieber, HUNTERS begins with a dark and mysterious scene
brimming with the threat of violence and sexual assault. One would think
something like this would entice viewers, and one would be right. But
the series almost immediately negates the interest by jumping back in
time 72 hours, a tried trope that certainly should not be used in a
pilot, and never really gets into what we first saw in any meaningful
way. Certainly, the scene itself is not notable in the scheme of things.
The show has to start further back than
this to give us a little context about the girl and what’s going on,
since her abduction helps create the starting point. Her name is Abby
Carroll (Laura Gordon, Saw V), and while she herself doesn’t seem to be
much more than a catalyst, her relationship with husband Flynn (Nathan
Phillips, The Bridge) is vital to setting up the series.
See, there’s a group of covert agents
who are hunting extraterrestrial terrorists, hence the name of the
series, HUNTERS. Flynn, an FBI agent, finds out about them while looking
for Abby, and of course he’s invited to join, because why not? I don’t
think any of that is spoiling because Flynn is the promoted main
character, while Abby’s situation is shown in the opening. Yet, the show
takes forever to getting round to connecting these dots.
Instead, Flynn slows down to deal with
step-daughter Emme’s (Shannon Berry) issues. I could be wrong, but Emme
seems completely unnecessary to the plot, especially considering the
direction she is going. She feels like filler to stretch out a
miniseries into a full-blown show, giving Flynn some small development
on the side, but not too much, less he be distracted from his mission.
(That is not a complaint about Berry, just the way the writers have
developed, or not developed, the character.)
Basically, though, Flynn is just your
generic hero, good with a tragic background, trying his best to do
right, but with little personality that seems original. Yawn.
HUNTERS also introduces a second lead,
Allison Regan (Britne Oldford, Ravenswood), who somehow manages to be
even less interesting. Allison is already a part of the alien hunting
team when we meet her, and she doesn’t get along all that well with her
fellow officers. So of course she’s foisted on the new guy, and they’ll
apparently work as a team where others have failed to.
Except, the leads have absolutely no
chemistry at all. Most crime procedural pairings are well cast and
provide the draw to watch a case-of-the-week show every week, even when
the stories become repetitive. HUNTERS is that type of show without the
charming main characters, meaning there really isn’t much at all going
for it.
HUNTERS tries to be many things,
primarily a shadowy world like Fringe or The X-Files, but with enough
influence from other programs thrown in, such as the cop genre, to avoid
drawing one-to-one comparisons. Yet, it’s like it was created from just
making a list of characteristics the producers wanted, but with no
effort spent figuring out what would actually make this show work.
Sadly, the result is not worth watching.
HUNTERS premieres tonight at 10/9c on SyFy.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.