Beware, the following contains spoilers for the whole first (and only) season of “The Event,” a show no one really watched. Still, be warned.
The fall of 2010 was a wild time for genre TV. With “Lost” ending its sensational run with a controversial yet still perfect finale, that fall season was filled with genre shows that were all about high concepts and mysteries. These were shows that attempted to capitalize on the rise in serialization in genre storytelling on network TV that came with “Lost” but failed to understand what made that show great (the exception was “Fringe,” which was a returning show and a phenomenal sci-fi series with more in common with “The X-Files” than “Lost”). We got a remake of the sci-fi conspiracy thriller “V,” a superhero sitcom in “No Ordinary Family,” the hilariously weird superhero show “The Cape” about, well, a guy with a cape, and there was also “The Event.”
Created by Nick Wauters, “The Event” followed Sean Walker (Jason Ritter), a man who becomes entangled in a vast conspiracy after his girlfriend Leila (Sarah Roemer) vanishes in the middle of their vacation. This coincides with a storyline involving President Martinez (Blair Underwood) and his struggle with deciding whether to shut down a top-secret detention center and reveal a cover-up involving its detainees. It became apparent rather quickly that the facility was a detention center for a group of extraterrestrials that crashed in Alaska 66 years before the start of the show, extraterrestrials who try to take over the world. Yes, like “V,” this was also a story about aliens deceiving humanity and planning to take over. The series also starred Laura Innes, Scott Patterson, Clifton Collins Jr., and Željko Ivanek.
The season one finale ended with aliens arriving on the planet en masse, while the president’s son is revealed to have been one of them all along. This was the titular “event” the series was building up to. Unfortunately, the show never made it past season one, even if it was just building up to the real story.
Read more: 15 Best Netflix Limited Series, Ranked
The Event was part of the search for the next Lost
Sean and Leila smiling by the beach in The Event – NBC
The thing that separated “The Event” from other genre shows of 2010 was how heavily serialized it was. Being executive-produced by Evan Katz, the show drew many comparisons to Katz’s previous show, “24” (which also ended its initial run earlier that year), except not quite in real time.
“The Event” was just getting to the good part of the story at the time it got canceled, which left fans wondering just exactly what the show was ultimately meant to be about — an alien invasion? An immigration allegory about co-existence? Unfortunately, we’ll never know. Though the pilot episode had a strong viewership with nearly 11 million, the season quickly dropped half its viewership, which prompted NBC to place the show on hiatus halfway through. Unsurprisingly, when the show came back, even fewer people were watching, reaching a low of 3.85 million toward the end of its run.
Unfortunately, that was the case with most of the genre shows that were released in the wake of “Lost” changing the face of TV forever. With its production design (particularly the hugely expensive feature-length pilot episode), extended cast, and unique blend of mystery box myth-building and episodic character drama, “Lost” changed the way people watched TV, and it also changed what was possible to do on TV. Many, many shows would come out every season during the early 2010s that tried to replicate the success of “Lost,” but most ended up placing too much focus on the mystery box aspect and forcing people to keep watching to even figure out what the show is about, rather than building up the characters and letting them dictate the story.
Sure, the whole world was captivated by the question of where the hatch led from the end of season one, but they were more captivated by, say, the story of John Locke (Terry O’Quinn) finding confidence (and the ability to walk again) on the island, and his relationship with the man of science, Jack (Matthew Fox). Still, some shows actually succeeded in replicating the “Lost” formula, but it wasn’t “The Event.”
If you’re looking for the easiest way to keep up with all the major movie and TV news, why not sign up to our free newsletter?
Read the original article on SlashFilm.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com ’
