There were several new fall TV shows on display this year at Comic-Con and NBC was out in full force promoting their new serial drama, The Event.
It’s no surprise really that NBC would be hawking the show at the biggest gathering of sci-fi/action fans in the world, because for the past couple of weeks viewers have been inundated with a bevy of commericials and faceless clips asking “What is the event?”
When I sat down at the panel I expected to watch a short clip or two from the show and then have a Q&A session with the cast and crew, which is just about how every other panel had gone that day. Boy was I wrong! NBC ended showing the entire 1st episode premier which, in retrospect, was actually a bummer because we only had 12 minutes or so for the entire panel of 11 people to answer questions.
I’ll start with the show itself – it was OK and there are many things about it that I find annoying, but still, it is a decent offering by NBC and should do well for the network this Fall. Of course, there were a few shows last year that everyone thought would do well but they ultimately got cancelled (see: Trauma and ABC’s Flash Forward). Still, NBC is looking to fill the void left by the serial drama Heroes and they are hoping The Event is the show to do just that.
I won’t give anything away in this article about the actual plot of the show, because that would just be lame, but the one major annoying part of the show are the jumps in time. We start off in actual time then jump back 23 minutes, then jump back 12 days, then back to actual time for just one character. Then a second character is introduced and the same thing happens to their timeline and so on and so forth for an additional 4 or 5 characters. Then it starts over with the 1st character but this time goes back to 8 days then to 7 days…yeah, that all got very confusing.
I understand what creator and executive producer Nick Wauters is trying to do, but I think it was too much, too fast; however, he and the other producers on the panel promised to give the audiences quick answers in the show and not drag out the explanation of what The Event actually is. In my experience, the build up to something is more exciting than the actual something itself (prom night,wedding night, first kiss, ect.).
If NBC isn’t careful, then the same thing will happen to The Event; audiences will stop tuning in each week and the show will quickly find itself in the cancelled pile.
If you haven’t already done so, then check out the promo for The Event below:
The Event stars Ian Anthony Dale (Tekken), Laura Innes (ER), Zeljko Ivanek (Damages), Scott Patterson (Gilmore Girls), Jason Ritter (W), Sarah Roemer (Disturbia), Lisa Vidal (ER), Clifton Collins Jr. (Boondock Saints II) and Blair Underwood (Dirty Sexy Money). The premier airs September 20th, 2010 on NBC and every Monday after that at 8/9 Central.
