Was it me or did it seem like there was an incredible number of commercials during this two-hour premiere? Everytime I started getting into the plot, something dramatic would happen and they'd go to a commercial.
The first episode of Threshold was half X-Files, half The Invaders. It was half good, half oh-will-you-please-just-get-on-with-it. Let's start with the latter first.
Most of the bad can be traced to the fact that this first ep was two hours, when the show itself will be only one hour. Which will make the show 10x better, because two hours of endless talking about scientific this and scientific that, along with boring chases and searches around big industrial plants...it was just a bit much. The plot? It manages to be sorta confusing and sorta predictable all at the same time. You got your aliens arriving via funky space craft whose noise causes people's orifaces to bleed and their bodies to be taken over. There are some nice touches in the way the set up unfolds (that weird pattern that seems to figure into the aliens' plans, and especially the intriguing twist that three of the team members are affected somehow after watching a video of the ship arriving), but at the same time you just wish they'd move on from all the explanations and confrontations and just get to the nitty gritty.
Now the good: this is one fine ensemble cast! Carla Gugino is appropriately smart and spunky as the team leader, and she's backed up by other team members who have a specialty of their own. Brent Spiner and Peter Dinklage really stand out. Spiner is a scientist, but doesn't play it like Data (yes, there is a Star Trek joke). He's a good character actor. And Dinklage? God, he's the most interesting one of the group. A small person who's a brilliant mathematician with a jones for strippers. Dinklage is a great actor. They should just give him his own show.
I was also impressed by how the first hour was very movie-like. The show seemed bigger than the small screen, with some nice camera work and big sets, and there were some pretty intense scenes (mutated faces, people bleeding, a guy who hung himself, etc) for a primetime network series.
So the rest of the show is going to hinge on three things: the appeal of this cast, how interesting the rest of the aliens' world domination plans are and how the team (and the writers) come up with ways to stop them, and, most importantly, how long viewers will put up with a sci-fi show on Friday nights. Sci-Fi shows don't have a great track record on Fridays (except The X-Files, and even that eventually moved to Sundays), so it might be a little tricky. I say that CBS gives it a couple more weeks in this time slot, and if it doesn't get good ratings then move it to another night. It's worth the trouble.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-17-2005 @ 12:57AM
Mick said...
Maybe it was the fact that they continually showed the commercial for CSI, but this show gave me as much of an emotional disconnect as CSI does.
A very good cast (especially Peter Dinklage) but nowhere near the satisfaction you see from LOST.
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9-17-2005 @ 9:36AM
Dave said...
I'm sorry; I watched the show HOPING that it would be a good show. Instead, I got a most disconnected 2 hours of my life that I'll never get back. And the main character was far too young for the role. Also, the actors did things that people in the real world would not normally do far too often me.
I love the fact that after the intruder almost killed her and chased her all over the house that the cops FINALLY show up and have the nerve to say, "We've been canvasing your house the entire time." Hell, she could have been dead for a long time before they showed up!!!
I'm beginning to think the show was written by a 14 year old.
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9-17-2005 @ 11:50AM
Sugar said...
For some reason, my mind was tilted to the fact that watching this new show (sci-fi, I like; Dirklage, I love; Spinner, I find amusing) was a better idea than going on down to my local drinking hole and passing my time stuttering incoherently to strangers around the bar.
I may have been wrong. Since, however I can not change that decision now, I will say that the show isn’t horrible. The actors are good, the writing is mediocre, they got the math wrong, the military procedure wrong, and do they really expect me to believe that only three people are in charge of this operation?
(Flip over to CNN for latest in Hurricane coverage.) Oh, okay, I suppose three people in charge of an alien invasion is as good as we ARE going to get…probably better.
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9-17-2005 @ 1:36PM
Craig said...
I also watched with hopes this would be something worth watching, but then it quickly became apparent that it was just going to be CSI with alien DNA. At the end I thought to myself, if my planet was being invaded by aliens I might want to put more than 4 of my people on the job.....
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9-17-2005 @ 2:53PM
JDog said...
4 words which spell doom for this series ... produced by Brannon Braga.
It all made sense once I saw the credits ... interesting initial premise and decent actors weighed down by predictable scripts, style without substance and all too convenient deus ex machina endings. It's ST: Voyager and Enterprise all over again.
Is it just me or is the conept of a 3-4 person cast of "know it alls" seem way too disengaged from reality and way to cliche? So Data ... sorry Dr. Fenway ... is a forensic microbiologist who can do autopsys, crime scene investigation, is an expert in DNA, neurology as well as the use of chemicals in treatment plants? And Vincent Gallo ... oops I mean Lucas ... is an astronautical engineer who is an also theoretical physiscist when speaking about 4th and 5th dimensonal beings?
I give it 2 more shots at making my Tivo Season pass ... and that's 1 more than it deserves based soley on Carla Cugino.
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9-17-2005 @ 5:50PM
Tweaq said...
i watched it, it was ok. but you would think they would have AT LEAST gotten 1 paranormal/alien researcher person. but if theres nothign else on this season, i'll probably watch it.
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9-18-2005 @ 1:37AM
Lisa said...
All the commercials did throw me too. O.K., I get it CSI is to CBS as Law and Order is to NBC, you got a lot of 'em...enough already. That said the commercials kept me from really connecting. The movie vibe was cool and I was surprise that a network was being so "edgy".
UNBELIEVABLE: 1) North Korea was the ONLY country to notice something was up? 2) It took the "team" no time at all to figure out a triple helix but can not figure out why some people are affect by the sound waves. 3) If you are staking out a house and even "bug" said house you wait until someone is being choked before busting through the door?! 4) Brent Spiner's multi-tasking he is a walking CSI unit.
GOOD: 1) Brent Spiner is not DATA and even better he did not the play this character the same way he played the whacky-scientist in the movie Independence Day. 2) Peter Dinklage. Loved him in Station Agent and Tiptoes. I was looking forward to seeing him in Threshold and he did not disappoint. 3) Charles Dutton is good in this role. I hope his character does not become a clich?
SUGGESTIONS: Treat the viewer with respect. Your target audience is smart and SCI-FI savvy. Have a clear tight script. Give your actors well crafted words--play to their strengths. Avoid stereotyping at all costs. Could Peter Dinklage's character just as easily been played by an ethnic-minority (think about it). Fewer commercials, save them for CSI.
In all, I hope these are rookie mistakes and the show finds its groove. I'll watch it a couple more times but I will have my fingures crossed.
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9-19-2005 @ 8:09AM
Bruce Wayne-Johnson said...
I agree with Jdog and Lisa's reviews here - 2 more to give it the benefit of the fanboy doubt and then I'm gone if it doesnt get better - hope they are flushing the cliches out now so that it gets better...
the GLOBAL FREQUENCY pilot showed more promise than this, and it didnt even get to air.
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9-19-2005 @ 3:59AM
Tacitus said...
It's a shame "The 4400" got there first and does it better... much better. It's a crying shame that Peter Dinklage got himself saddled with this series, he deserves much better.
The directing and the writing was just too flat, too clunky. Despite what others have been saying about the show being too slow, I actually found that they moved the plot along too quicky - relying on explicit exposition rather than having events unfold naturally.
It's funny, just when sci-fi appears to be undergoing a renaissance with shows like Battlestar Galactica, The 4400, Lost, etc - all quality shows and compelling TV - we seem to have take an immediate step backwards. Did CBS not learn anything from these shows apart from "sci-fi may not be such a losing proposition after all"?
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9-26-2005 @ 4:18PM
Belgand said...
Sci-Fi shows almost always tend to be on Fridays, at least, the good ones: Firefly, The X-Files, Battlestar Galactica, Stargate SG-1. I've often considered as to whether this is intentional (i.e. they assume that the major market for sci-fi are going to be home on a Friday night watching TV whereas it's less likely that most other groups will, sort of like how ABC's TGIF was targeted at children who also aren't really going anywhere). I think the bigger problem is that sci-fi on TV doesn't always have the strongest track record.
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