NBC is doing something very smart in their marketing of the two-hour winter premiere return for The Event: they are treating it like a second season premiere, as if to say that old grievances should be left at the door because this is a whole new show. But in actuality it really is just a return: there was not time between the filming of the first half and second half to really retool the show, nor did the writers and producers feel that was entirely necessary. Instead, after delivering much needed answers about what Sophia (Laura Innes)’s people are and what they are planning in the part one finale, they are prepared to deliver on the action and suspense of taking the story to the next level. The question now is, though, is it too late? Is it too late for the American people when Sophia’s people descend, as after all the greatest strength is in numbers, and is it too late for our own American people to care?
Where The Event always hit home was in the very human struggle of Sean Walker (Jason Ritter), who just wanted to save his girlfriend and her family. Faced with other-worldly adversity, it was proof positive that even in the craziest scenarios-- or maybe because of the craziest scenarios-- a real man would stop at nothing to fight for those he loved. But upon learning that those he love aren’t quite so human after all, that story line can’t help but lose a little bit of its, well, humanity. The gears are shifting. Sean met his goal-- he found his girlfriend-- and now the story must be reset. So the fact that they are barely there in the two-hour return is not entirely surprising, even if their presence is missed because it was the main emotional tie for the audience through the entire first half of the season.
But where one story may lose, another will gain. The Event is no longer simply about an “us” versus a “them.” This time around there are three groups at odds, not even including the various levels of politics that get involved and inevitably screw with every plan just a little bit. Now there is Sophia and her group who seem to have given up the dream of getting to go home and now just want to coexist peacefully; there is the President (Blair Underwood) who is perhaps ill-equipped but still insistent on removing what he perceives as a threat; and there is Thomas (Clifton Collins Jr.) and his sub-sect, who is planning to act as an army and invade.
And this time around Thomas isn’t the only threat to the President, though the more we learn about him, the less we’re so inclined to believe he perhaps should be in power. Virginia Madsen joins the cast as a Senator from Alaska who comes to power after her husband is killed. In taking over his office, she inherits some classified documents that exposes the prison the President has kept a secret, and she won’t take “classified” for an answer, wanting to know who the prisoners and their races, skin colors, and religious affiliations are. She’s tough; she’s strong; she’s a quick thinker; and she’s calling the President’s bluff. If she had been introduced episodes earlier, she may have just been able to save his story line from infinite boredom.
Where The Event is most intriguing these days is where it grapples with ideas of community, of purpose, and of morality. In the immediate return, much of this is explored through a tertiary character at best (guest star Clea Duvall), who sits down and explains that her people are bound by a moral center that would preclude them from any kind of mass murder or other kind of harm to the general public. It is her argument for why the invasion signal could not have possibly been real, but the minute she is asked to consider Thomas’ unorthodox ways could be adopted by more of her community than she seems to anticipate, the true threat is written plainly on her face. The longer her people have lived among humans, the more they have suffered at our hands, the greater the risk has been that our ways also rub off on them. They have adapted, at first because they had to pretend, to fit in, but after decades the behavior all must feel very natural. “They” did not arrive to destroy us, but their time among us slowly, surely destroyed them.
Unfortunately the two-hour premiere spends so much time ensuring that not only the audience but also every individual character involved knows the truth of what Thomas is up to, at separate points in the story. This leads to a lot of repetition and a lot of time spent that would have been better served focusing on the new developments with the Senator or Sean. The most fascinating developments get very little play, though they hold so much promise.
There’s a lot on The Event’s plate when it returns to NBC on March 7th at 9pm. But if it continues to speed up its pacing, it just may stand a shot of getting back on track and finishing its season strong.
Comments
I really want to like this show, so I was willing to look past its faults during the first half of the season, but I hope what they did to step it up is enough. I think the show has real potential assuming, as you said, that its not too late to keep viewers hooked.
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