TV Review: Crisis "Pilot"
By: Brandon Wolfe
It has been interesting to witness how much ‘24’ has influenced network dramas over the past decade. Though certainly not the first television series to put a serialized narrative in place (there was ‘Twin Peaks’, to name but one), it was nevertheless ground-zero for the current trend of breathless, runaway-train storytelling. ‘24’ not only brought serialization to the forefront, it also injected cinematic thrills, a breakneck pace and a scenario perhaps more germane to an action movie than a weekly television series. Back in 2001, it seemed revolutionary. In 2014, it’s just another show.
‘Crisis’ is just another show. It raids the ‘24’ playbook more voraciously than most of that series’ illegitimate offspring have. It’s a series that, at least in its pilot, works itself into a lather attempting to build urgency and create surprises. ‘Crisis’ doesn’t just want to entertain you or hold your interest, it wants your head to spin around on your neck like the Gravitron ride at a carnival. But it doesn’t really give us anything we haven’t already gotten before, and much better.
The series throws us right into the deep end immediately. A school bus trip is departing, unique in the sense that it will have a Secret Service detail because no less than the President’s son is onboard. Also on the bus is Beth Ann Gibson, whose nebbishy, ineffectual father, Francis Gibson, has taken the role as the trip’s parental chaperone, and Amber Fitch, whose mother, Meg Fitch, is the CEO of a powerful IT company and is played with icy force by Gillian Anderson. On the Secret Service detail is Marcus Finley, a last-minute replacement and rookie, for whom this is his first day on the job, letting us know straight away that this is not going to go smoothly. And it doesn’t, as the bus is ambushed by a group of masked men who take the entire class hostage. Finley takes a bullet, but manages to escape into the woods with a student named Anton Roth in tow and a hijacker in hot pursuit.
The hostages are taken to a house and are forced to wait as the kidnappers make their next move. The students believe that the President’s son is obviously the main target behind this plot, but then come to realize that virtually all of them have high-powered parents and any one of them could just as easily be the reason behind this. An FBI agent named Susie Dunn is assigned to the case and has to wrangle with these powerful parents, who demand answers that she does not have. Dunn is also the sister of Meg Fitch, from whom she has been bitterly estranged for many years. The two sisters come to realize that this crisis is bigger than any petty grievances between them in the past and agree to move beyond it and work together. Meanwhile, Finley fends off his pursuer, but Anton’s father is a tech wizard of some sort and is blackmailed by the kidnappers into disabling the drone that is closing in on their whereabouts.
‘Crisis’ doesn’t seem to have much faith in its already busy setup because it can’t help but throw out some twists seemingly just for the sake of having them. Francis, fighting his lily-livered nature, tries to make a bold move on a henchman and loses a pinky finger for his troubles. But, as we come to find out, that was ALL PART OF THE PLAN, and he is the secret ringleader of this dastardly scheme, bent on vengeance after being betrayed by his government employers. We also learn that Amber is not Meg’s daughter, but is actually Agent Dunn’s, for some reason. Again, secret turncoats and meaningless switcheroos were tools that ‘24’ always kept in its shed, so why should ‘Crisis’ not put them to use? The series also opens on a tense scene in the thick of the action to create immediate suspense before backtracking with an “8 Hours Earlier” tag, a trick that had gathered considerable dust back when ‘Alias’ was still on the air.
I can’t say that I found ‘Crisis’ terribly gripping in its inaugural hour. For all the lather it tries to work up, none of this is very compelling this far. It doesn’t set up any of its characters in that substantial way that good pilots do to make us want to see these people again next week, and none of the actors, not even Anderson, make a strong first impression. I also don’t quite know how the show sustains itself as an ongoing series. A hostage situation can only go for so long before it has to be resolved, so the show will need to become something entirely different at some point soon, and there’s no way to tell as of yet what that might be. But the show should probably take a breath and establish some character soon to keep the audience involved, because right now, it’s coming off like it’s more interested in checking boxes off of an action-series itinerary than telling us an engrossing story.
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