Persons Unknown

This show really surprised me! With very little advertisement and on a Monday night line up its actually a very promising show. The few previews I did see kind of made it out to seem like some Saw rip off made for TV. The show was actually quite the opposite, it may be considered a horror TV show by some people but I believe it is more of a thriller.

The basic premise revolves around a group of strangers kidnapped and dropped off in a weird town in the middle of nowhere. No one really knows what's going on, so the main plot is to uncover why and who has placed them there. It definitely gives a Lost type of confusion which leaves you with more questions.

So far only the pilot has aired but I was very impressed and hope some people check it out. It's on Mondays on NBC. A lot of good shows like this go unnoticed and get canceled so if you're looking for a good new show check it out.

Persons Unknown was a very respectable series with a few shortcomings in writing and some inconsistent acting. If you enjoy psychological thrillers this is absolutely worth a shot but I do warn you, NBC made some very false promises that this show would wrap up and that any lingering questions would be answered. Apparently, the plug got pulled on this series after the first season leaving it to the viewer to decide on a lot of the outcome. That being said, it's really not difficult to draw one's own conclusions and enough content was answered to leave one feeling somewhat fulfilled. I will not punish a show for the networks shameful behavior, Persons Unknown was a solid 7.5 with a perhaps even more promising future had it been given the chance and NBC's lack of honesty was an abysmal 1. If you read through a few more reviews you'll see this tends to be the consensus, some are just punishing the show with a bad rating when it was not the writers/directors/actors fault it was so short lived.

Janet Cooper (Daisy Betts) hired a P.I. to find his deadbeat husband who disappeared on her and her daughter. She's utterly broke and then is kidnapped in broad daylight. She wakes up in a nameless hotel in a nameless town. She is helped by mysterious Joe Tucker (Jason Wiles). They are joined by soldier Graham McNair (Chadwick Boseman), camp counselor Moira Doherty (Tina Holmes), party girl Tori Fairchild (Kate Miner), wealthy investment banker Charlie Morse (Alan Ruck) and car salesman Bill Blackham (Sean O'Bryan). There's a field around the town that makes the abductees pass out. There is endless Chinese food and messages from their abductors. Newsapaper reporter Mark Renbe (Gerald Kyd) investigates Janet's kidnapping with his editor Kat Damatto (Lola Glaudini).

It starts with an interesting premise but the viewer is left frustrated waiting for the whys. It's a mistake to show the 'real' world. The reporter, the investigation, her kidnapping and her daughter are all problematic. Without them, this could be purgatory, supernatural, a dream or aliens. With them, it can only be orchestrated by people. Then it becomes nothing more than simply asking why and those are limited questions. The show really is left with only one card and it can't actually play that card. In the end, the show loses steam by constantly hinting at the card without actually showing it. It becomes a bore.

Not sure why so many people were disappointed in and even hated this series. They even blasted the production and writing. The whole point of this story is that there is no end, no exit. It's like life, it just keeps changing with some new and some same people, and different levels of "evolution". There is no way out. We are stuck with who we are and how we work it all out. The writing is concise, to the point, and doesn't get bogged down in misdirection. People answer with immediate understandings, and the action moves quickly. And the photography and, lighting, and camera work is excellent. I know because I'm a professional photographer who has worked on some high end productions. The acting is true and heartfelt. It's a great metaphor for life on so many levels. The resistances to what is, the paranoia, the struggles with questions of doing what it takes, survival, and compassion in the face of distrust. The dynamics are great to watch. There are of course some aspects that are easy to criticize because, hopefully, the conspiracy is contrived and nothing like this could happen. But perhaps on some levels, we actually live in this kind of world. So yes some plot lines are unexplained and far-fetched, but are they really. There is a lot of mystery around all kinds of corporate and govt activity.

It's really a shame that this great mini-series - as I have heard it advertised several times now - fell to the bumbling NBC, and then got moved from a "safer" 10:00 slot to a very early summer time of 8 eastern. Regardless, I've been trying to recruit as many friends and family as I can - particularly "24" and "LOST" fans - as Persons Unknown has given me at least one reason to look forward to Mondays.

Created by Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects, Valkyrie), this show provides non-stop suspense while keeping you in the dark plenty enough as to WHO is watching these poor folks attempt to keep their sanity, among other things. As a couple of other posters alluded to, I also was worried after weeks one and two if the show would be able to keep providing adequate suspense. After watching episode 5 tonight, the answer is a resounding yes: one could almost argue that there is an overload of questions for the viewer. That is not a problem that I mind, and each week has built on the last, making the show stronger as it progresses.

If you have not checked out this show yet, it's not too late, but at the same time, catch up if you can. It'd definitely be worth your while to see why this bizarre town is about as creepy as the woods from The Blair Witch Project and the island of Lost combined into one.