By Chris Cox
The Event is not The Event. That is the slogan of a new series on Monday nights at 9/8c on NBC.
Created by Nick Wauters and produced by Evan Katz, the producer of an Emmy award winning series 24 (2001 – 2010). A series which has a feel similar to 24, of fast-paced storytelling and multiple interwoven subplots full of twists and turns. The Event is an engrossing fast paced thriller with government conspiracies, mysteries, and an alien race. The Event is described as a Lost/24 hybrid, taking things that fans loved from both and presents mysteries at the end of each episode to keep viewers interested. Government conspiracies which involve aliens combine the mystery elements of Lost with the political thriller elements of 24.
Sean Walker (Jason Ritter) is a shy, introverted, and nervous guy with good intentions. Sean Walker is a computer programmer who creates video games for a living. While Sean is vacationing with his girlfriend, Leila Buchanan (Sarah Roemer) she mysteriously disappears after being abducted. Her captors are related to mysterious people that were capable of saving President Elias Martinez (Blair Underwood), 24‘s David Palmer 2.0 in the making. He was saved from the assassination by these people through a way beyond human understanding, and the suspense had viewers fully interested after the final moments of the show’s pilot. These mysterious aliens first appeared as passengers in a plane crash that came from an unknown destination. They appear as human beings but have differences in genetics. Some of them live among the population as normal citizens but the rest were imprisoned in a top secret Government run facility in Alaska.
The Event‘s episodes unfold a lot like Lost which is sometimes out of chronological order with flashbacks that reveal details about the plot. The first episode of The Event was told in reverse chronological order, and was somewhat hard to follow, it had awkward writing. This gave some viewers a bad impression of the pilot. However, this seemed to be fixed after the pilot episode as the flashbacks make us care more about Sean and Leila’s romance and hope that they are reunited.
The Event is written excellently in the way in which it presents a mystery cliffhanger at the end of every episode to keep the viewers guessing the mysteries. Combining elements of Lost and 24 make this mystery thriller refreshing with every episode engrossing and exciting. The big question is “What is The Event?” As we are only answered with “The Event is not THE Event”, many theories are being discussed on the internet.
Now, the problem with The Event, is that the series is planned for five seasons. The Event can be a promising series, but just how long will the writers’ ideas last? Sure, the writers can hold up for a strong first season, and possibly second season as well, but how will they hold that for five seasons? There is not a lot of optimism that the series will stay strong for long, despite its success so far. Many fans are nervous that this may result in the show’s cancellation, the same fate as last year’s FlashForward.
The Event has a lot of promise for success, and is quickly becoming a favorite on NBC, but will The Event be THE event of the next generation of broadcast TV?
