I have almost no idea what this show is about. I mean, I watched it, I understood the scenes, but I have no idea who half the people are, what their motivation is, or more importantly, why I would care about any of them.

Kyra Sedgewick is the main character…a mother in the middle of a divorce, with a young daughter. She has constant flashbacks to herself as a kid? or herself as a young out of control mom? It’s not even clear which it is, but since she only has one kid and there are two in the flashbacks, let’s assume it was a crappy childhood surrounded by pills, booze and sex amongst adults, along with all the dysfunction that often goes with it. She’s a TV producer who is overworked and frazzled, with a history of documentary success but is supposedly in the fiction business. I don’t really understand the show she’s working on and how much if it is fiction and how much is from sources. Or the role of her writers room.

Anyway, all of that is irrelevant. The only thing you need to know is she is a mother, apparently. Her young daughter goes missing while Mom is working in a studio in her backyard. Mom thinks Dad took her; seems at first like he didn’t. But the cops eventually widen to think maybe she did something to her daughter, or something happened and she isn’t saying. She said she was in the shed for a short time, but it was closer to six hours. Either way, the cute snuggly daughter has been kidnapped by someone.

I don’t want to be a SPOIL sport, but if the show doesn’t turn on her assistant producer being involved, I’ll eat my shorts. He is the one who made her work at the last minute, setting up the opening for the daughter to be kidnapped. Unless someone tricked him, he is the only one who could guarantee the abduction window. And there’s no way it was simply a crime of opportunity, it would just be stupid. But the only way the plan works is if Mom is working, drugged, stoned, high, and doesn’t notice her daughter is missing until four in the morning.

A duplicitous assistant. A lying ex-husband. A suspicious cop. Weird co-workers. Drug dealers. And an aunt who doesn’t like Mom very much. Are any of them compelling? Not really.

And I didn’t see much of the daughter before she was gone.

Which leaves me only caring about poor broken Mom. Who is a zombie for almost the whole episode. I know, it’s Kyra’s schtick. She’s done it before in other shows, didn’t care then, don’t care now.

And colour me not surprised it has had the lowest ratings of any show debuting yet this year. Lots of pundits calling for cancellation, but there is a small component in there that some networks want to work with Kyra, and her shows do often have slow starts. But in the end, I’m sticking by my original prediction:

ABC: Ten Days in the Valley – Oooh, a missing child with a mystery. How many movie cliches can you pack into a new show that isn’t owned by ABC? Bye bye, don’t let the ratings guillotine hit you on the way down – CANCELLED;