The Event (2010)

Starring: Jason Ritter, Sarah Roemer, Laura Innes, Ian Anthony Dale, Scott Patterson, Hal Holbrook, Virginia Madson, Blair Underwood, Zeljko Ivanek, Taylor Cole, Lisa Vidal, & Bill Smitrovich

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Let me guess, you've never heard of the Event? The show was yet another networks answer to Lost and this one had a real shot at success. The initial ratings were high, leading NBC to pick the show up for an entire season. As has become common place on NBC, after four episodes they took it off for weeks to promote some God awful reality show, and when they brought it back, it was on a new night and the rating plummeted. The Event had a terrific premise and has been called a meeting between 24 and the 4400, I couldn't agree more. 66 years ago, an alien ship crashed in Alaska, and the aliens aboard were not strange creatures, but were in fact nearly identical to us. The only difference being that they age at a much slower rate than we do. About half the crew escaped and tried to peacefully blend into society, but it was hard since they barely age, and often had to re-start their lives. The other group was locked up by the U.S. government until such time as their true reasons for being here could be explained. The series starts when a new President (Blair Underwood) takes office and learns of the prison. His first reaction is that they've never done anything wrong and he's planning to reveal them to the world and set them free, but someone doesn't want that to happen. This unknown force orchestrates this huge conspiracy to assassinate the President, while painting the aliens in a much different light. Most episodes are split into three separate stories that all relate to one another. The White House angel looks as though it could be right out of 24, as it is so similar to what we saw on FOX for 7 seasons. The aliens go from friend to foe and the President and his men, those who are actually his men, will stop at nothing to find the rest of them. The next part shows the aliens themselves lead by Sophia (Laura Innes) who has many different goals that frequently change and surprise you. It's this part of the storyline that I found to be the most enjoyable and interesting part of the show. The third sequence follows an ordinary couple that just happened to get caught in the middle, but may ultimately be the key to this whole thing. The writing for this show is as good as you will see on Television, it's not in quite as much detail as 24, and the timeline can be somewhat hard to follow, but never the less it's very well done. Unusual for this type of show is also the fact that there is no one person who you can call the star. Jason Ritter is the face that is most associated with the show, but he's not more important than anyone else, leading me to believe that his looks have something to do with it. Overall, The Event is another terrific show that was killed by network mismanagement. I sometimes wonder if these executives actually watch the shows they put on the air and realize what they have. There is no doubt in my mind, that if NBC hadn't put it on an 8 week hiatus and then changed it's time slot, that this show would be in the top 10 by now. Instead one of the most interesting shows to come along in years is another Nielsen casualty. For fans of the show, there is still some hope as for the past two years, the Syfy channel has been interested in doing a mini-series, with the possibility of re-launch should the ratings call for one. I am one of the people who will definitely be keeping his fingers crossed for that.