Persons Unknown – Kidnapping Illuminati Power Mongers
I just finished watching the latest episode of Persons Unknown, one of a string of new shows out this summer trying to hook the mystery angle of TV Drama’s. I can only guess that they are rooms full of execs out west scheming to make a show that will plug into the success of Lost. Persons Unknown, Haven, Happy Town and Harper’s Island are all recent examples. None of which have hit that Lost level of success. To be honest, none have had that budget either or support from a top ranked producer/director. Still, I watch them hoping to find a gem, but often finding not much.
Persons Unknown is not a terrible show but it’s not a really good show either. To set the stage, the show is about seven strangers, sent to live in a hotel, and have their lives recorded, while unknown powerful people watch what happens when people stop acting fake, and start acting Real. Wait, what?
One of the biggest issues with these types of shows is believability. Lost had something about it that allowed people to connect to it. In the real world that we live in the Lost world could exist. Meaning that some mysterious island somewhere in the world’s oceans that had some mysterious power could really exist. Of course, you have to allow dark matter to be real, be on the island, be capable of being manipulated and used by anyone who drinks from a cup of water and becomes “like” someone else. That island could be plopped right down in our ocean and no one would be the wiser. All the events of Lost could have happened, nothing was unbelievable if you accept the islands power to manipulate events.
When we turn our attention to Person’s Unknown, that believability factor starts to go down. First, some ghost town in the middle of no where? Hello Google Earth? The Island in Lost can’t be seen due to metaphysical technobabble but in Persons Unknown there is no ‘power’ preventing anything from working. Next, kidnapping mom’s in parks and leaving footage of it laying around is hardly the work of an international super powerful group of MTV executives. Again, hello YouTube? Just upload the damn video to the web and it’s a CNN special report of Soledad O’Brien (hotty). Another big unbelievable factor, all those damn cameras. These people have camera’s apparently in every house in every city all over the world. Even if they are powerful enough to intercept Google Earth images and overthrow the YouTube upload process, they’d have to employ a small army of camera installation crews to maintain all that peeping tom equipment. And in one of the episodes, someone broke one of the globe camera’s that was instantly replaced by another in some behind the scenes automated replacement camera system. That’s gotta be one seriously robust replacement system.
The unbelievability aside, the bigger issue I have with the show is how fast things were revealed. Though, in truth, I suppose that’s a bit unfair. It isn’t a full fledged series but really a long running mini-series. Which really is a new development in modern TV. The single season series. That said, even though it only lasts one season, I still think the mystery is all done. We know what each character is about, we know what the big organization is about, sure there may be some big twist ahead but if there is they aren’t showing it much. For really big twists that people don’t see coming, you need something else to keep them watching and interested. Persons Unknown has doesn’t have that anymore. People are kidnapped, two other people are looking for them, either they will join the program, destroy the all powerful group or all die. Anything’s possible with these new single season series.
What ever happens i’ll watch it and comment on it. Stay tuned!
