Ever since Lost went big, various networks try to come up with the “viral” show that will hold viewers. Alcatraz. Time travellers. Time loops. Plane disappearances and reappearances. So not surprisingly, the networks are trying again this year. I already wrote about one (Series premiere – The I-Land) and why I passed. Emergence had a slightly different take on it, which was a plane crash of some sort with only one survivor. A girl. With supposed amnesia and not a scratch on her.

But that wouldn’t be enough for the weird. Just before the plane crash, all the electronics in the nearby town went haywire. After the crash, some supposed NTSB people showed up and tried to take the girl, before the real NTSB people showed up. Meanwhile, the local police chief is protecting the girl. Dun dun dun. There’s other stuff happening, people trying to kidnap the girl, etc., and a reporter guy running around. Plus the girl seems to have some weird abilities — communicating with the TV, freaking out and causing stuff to move (telekinesis), and stopping a moving vehicle dead. Plus she never gets hurt. Cool beans. At the end of the episode, she goes into the bathroom and CUTS HER NECK to remove some sort of tracking tube or interface module that was glowing, without screaming or crying. DUN DUN DUN. Oh, and btw, she also can look at the police chief’s father and see that he has cancer that isn’t being cured.

Allison Tolman plays the police chief, Joanne Evans. She’s separated from her husband, and living with her daughter and dad. For her acting, I have to divide it in three segments. When she’s investigating, she’s a bit meek, but fine to watch. When she’s interacting with family and others, she’s quiet and speaks way too slowly. It’s like watching paint dry. And then when she’s with the girl, she seems like Ellen Degeneres voicing Dory. If I close my eyes, I hear Ellen. It’s very relaxing, and it works. But she does it like FOUR times in the episode. I get it, you can bond with the kid. Please stop. I’ve seen her in nothing else, but some parts here are hard to take.

Alexa Swinton plays the young girl, nicknamed Piper since they don’t know her real name. Swinton is fine, but she really doesn’t have much to do except look scared for most of the episode, with no emotional range except for one freak-out scene. Definitely need more scenes between her and the chief’s daughter. Haven’t seen her in anything before, she’s okay here.

Other actors and characters include:

• Ashley Aufderheide as the chief’s daughter, okay;
• Robert Bailey, Jr, as a young police officer, also okay;
• Zabryna Guevera as a doctor, although I liked her better on New Amsterdam and Gotham; and,
• Donald Faison as the ex-husband, who has a lot of series experience, none of which I saw, also okay.

Clancy Brown plays the Dad, and I liked him a lot in Sleepy Hollow as Sheriff Corbin. He’s always solid, even way back to Highlander as Kurgan, although he’s a bit of a caricature as a General on The Flash. Nice to see him here, although not sure about the role of the character.

The other main character is the supposed reporter, Benny, played by Owain Yeoman. I loved him on The Mentalist, and love him using his natural accent here. He doesn’t have a huge part yet, but I’m hoping that grows. I’m curious if he is supposed to develop a love interest with the Chief, but I hope not, she had no chemistry with him at all.

So where does that leave us? A couple of solid veterans to support the relatively newbie cast, two leads with limited emotive range, and a decent plot. Except I don’t see where it can go after Season 1. My original prediction was cancellation, and I’m going to stick with that. But I like it enough to watch for the plot.

I love private investigator stories, pretty much in any form. Give me a PI, lawyer, military investigator, mentalist, profiler, detective, mystery writer, psychic, whatever you want, if they’re investigating crime, I’m willing to give it a go. So ABC has a new PI show called Stumptown, takes place in Portland, and focuses on an ex military intelligence type who might be able to help people who don’t want to go to the police. It’s well-trod ground, all the way from the Busted Flush to the A-Team. If you have a problem. If nobody else can help. And if you can find her, maybe you can hire…Cobie Smulders?

Yeah, that was my reaction too. I liked Smulders on How I Met Your Mother. And I mostly hate her whenever she’s in the Marvel universe. Nor did I consider it a positive when she showed up on Andromeda. So…PI show on the one hand, Smulders on the other. Sigh. Let’s give it a go. Maybe I’ll be surprised.

And I was. She didn’t suck. Hardly high praise, but she was watchable. She plays it relatively straight, no fake comedic bits, albeit a bit cynically wry at times. Sure, she’s got PTSD of some sort, and her ability to fake that or pull off a sex scene isn’t great. But the PI side? Decent enough to watch.

But every PI needs a cop foil, and hers are two-fold — first up is Michael Ealy as the good cop and love interest / sex partner. I enjoyed him in Almost Human, skipped Common Law, and liked him in Flashforward. Here he is good, although his character is a bit uneven for Ep1. His boss, Camryn Manheim, basically scowls at people the whole time, which she has done lots of times before. Way back at the start of The Practice, she was decent, but I lost interest in the series and she was part of the reason. Not a plus for me, but she has a limited role here and it’s fine.

The rest of the cast is okay. Her friend Grey seems too good to be true — best friend? Something more? Curious if they’ll later reveal he’s either gay or has had a crush on her for years. Played by Jake Johnson, a little too earnest at times. Her brother Ansel is played by Cole Sibus, and is a maturing influence on Smulders character as she has to take care of him (unexplained condition, likely Down Syndrome or equivalent, and I like that they don’t explain it). And some people from the local reserve, Tantoo Cardinal (as the casino owner) and Gregory Zaragoza (as her right hand). Cardinal is decent, although mostly she just has to seem old and wise, with a bit of disdain for others.

Overall, I liked the show. Because of Smulders, I originally predicted cancellation. Unfortunately for me, I’ll be watching anyway but I think cancellation was the right call. I just don’t see enough meat in the show to get to renewal.

There are a lot of profiler shows that have come and gone. Some work, some don’t. They often try for a twist. A woman who grew up not knowing who her father was who suddenly is confronted with the FBI’s most wanted man saying he’ll only speak to her. An agent who investigated a series of murders until it consumed them and now they’re back. A victim who became a counsellor or an agent or an actual profiler. 

Or, in this case, the son of a serial killer who became an FBI profiler and was fired for breaching protocol. I wasn’t convinced it would work, so I predicted cancellation.

Tom Payne plays the titular son, Malcolm. I didn’t see him in The Walking Dead so he’s a fresh face for me. Decent, a little unsteady in his performance, but interesting character and watchable as an actor.

His boss is played by Lou Diamond Phillips and I think he does a great job.  I confess I’m hit or miss with LDP. I found him weak on Blue Bloods, so-so on Blindspot, watchable on Stargate: Universe, painful on Numb3rs, and okay for Young Guns. It’s not like his breakout in La Bamba. But he was okay here. Plays it straight, no curves, and it seems to fit better. Other coworkers include Aurora Perrineau, Keiko Agena, and Frank Harts. I didn’t get a fix on any of them, hard to tell.

His family consists of a sister, mother and of course the psycho father. The sister, Ainsley, is played by Halston Sage and I was struggling to place her at all. I just couldn’t figure out who she was, but she seemed so familiar. Of course, without all the alien makeup from Orville, she looks a bit different. Decent, but a bit weak of a character in the pilot.  Bellamy Young plays the mom, Jessica, and she has definite presence but not sure I care for the character much. Watching her, I also struggled to place her. Sure, I saw her in Dirty Sexy Money. But going back through her credits, I realized it was an episode of Cold Case where she played a housewife turned dance hall girl during the Depression and the subsequent War of the Worlds. She lit up the screen for that episode. Hope to see more of THAT here.

Finally, Hannibal Lecter, err, I mean Dr. Martin Whitly aka the serial killer father nicknamed The Surgeon is played by Michael Sheen. I haven’t watched Good Omens yet so hadn’t seen him there. I didn’t watch The Good Fight or Masters of Sex, so hadn’t seen him there either. Nor any of the other long list of roles. But for me, he is the weakest of the characters. There is almost zero menace or intrigue for his portrayal at all. More like milquetoast than Hannibal. He’s almost pathetic. Put differently, he shows no presence or gravitas to create a mythic figure for his son or his family.

Overall, I saw enough for me to keep watching. Unfortunately, I didn’t see enough to predict renewal.