"Hey look, its Cameron from Ferris Bueller!"

Last night was the first installment of NBC's Persons Unknown. The network is calling this show a summer-long mini-series, but it seems more like a summer-long tryout. The series is 13 episodes long, the typical number of episodes for cable series and a tad too many for your average mini-series.

Persons Unknown is a classic example of a show with a very cool premise but sub-par execution. I was instantly reminded of the movie Cube, but the show also has a bit of a Saw vibe as well. The idea behind the show is cool, if not completely original, the set pieces look great, but unfortunately the acting, direction and writing leave quite a bit to be desired.

The plot is a pretty straight forward mystery, kind of Hitchcock meets Clue. A handful of strangers from different walks of life with (seemingly) nothing in common are kidnapped and wake up in strange hotel rooms. Upon breaking out of the rooms and encountering their fellow hostages they group discovers that they are being held captive in an old fashioned ghost town which looks a lot like a studio back lot (in a cool way), complete with sheriff's department, general store (empty), Chinese restaurant and clothing store, all surrounded by omniscient, black-domed security cameras (it seems like every other shot is through the vantage point of these cameras, which gets pretty distracting). Two of the hostages atempt to make a run for it, only to discover that they are carrying around biometric implants that administer a dose of tranquilizer when they cross the invisible boundary around the perimeter of the town.

A wrinkle is thrown into the plot with a story line involving a reporter who gets his hands on a security tape of one of the hostages being kidnapped which leads to a weird interview with the hostages bizarre (possibly involved with the kidnappings?) mother. This plot device doesn't work very well and takes the viewer out of the very cool world of the ghost-town and back to the not-so-interesting real world. Clearly, these scenes will serve a purpose down the line, but they are pretty boring none the less.


Aside from the problems with the acting and the script, I had a bit of an issue with the way that NBC is marketing this show. The tag-line of Persons Unknown is "By the end of this summer, All questions will be answered", which sort of positions the show as the anti-Lost. NBC is basically saying to their audience, "Were you disappointed by Lost? Do you like mysteries that take place in interesting settings? Yes? Well, then do we have a show for you!" The problem here is that by drawing a parallel between Unknown Persons and Lost, they are setting themselves up for failure. Lost, for all its faults, was a pretty damn great show, with not only an extremely interesting and controversial premise, but above average writing and performances by the actors. Unknown Persons is going to have to offer more than the promise of answers to even sniff Lost's greatness. Not only that, but the show's devotion to moving the plot along and "answering questions" comes at the expense of fleshing out the characters. I worry that by the end of the summer when the all of the answers are in, no one will be left to care about what the questions were. That said, it is the summer season, so what the hell else is on? I'll probably check it out for at least a couple more weeks. You should too.