PILOT REVIEW: Hostages

HOSTAGES

Starring: Toni Collette, Tate Donovan, Rhys Coiro, Sandrine Holt, Billy Brown, Quinn Shephard, Mateus Ward, James Naughton, and Dylan McDermott

Based on the Israeli series created by Alon Aranya, Omri Givon, and Rotem Shamir
Written by Alon Aranya & Jeffrey Nachmanoff, Directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff

Hostages is a new thriller on CBS that is a major break from a standard CBS procedural due to its very serial nature. Brilliant surgeon Dr. Ellen Sanders (Toni Collette) is about to perform surgery on the US President Paul Kincaid (James Naughton) when her entire family - husband Brian (Tate Donovan), daughter Morgan (Quinn Shephard), and son Jake (Mateus Ward) - is taken hostage by a team led by FBI Agent Duncan Carlisle (Dylan McDermott). Rounding out the main cast is hostage team members (Rhys Coiro, Sandrine Holt, and Billy Brown).

THE GOOD: This is an interesting show and I applaud CBS for trying something different. Dylan McDermott and Toni Collette are strong in the lead roles, particularly Collette with her steely determination. There were some good dramatic moments including the sequence with the patrol car from the security system. I think this is a real unique premise that could be taken a lot of different ways and the set up alone in this episode (though tedious at times) was enough to make me want to come back. There are a lot of questions that were raised and I want to see what happens.

THE BAD: Despite all the interest, I still felt like something was lacking in the pilot. The dialogue plodded along at times and I felt that there were some slow moments for being a show about a family taken hostage. The biggest problem though is I agree with what most people have said: where exactly can this show go? Yes, they can extend it to a certain degree but you can only do that so much before the audience gets frustrated. The other option is they have to complicate things too much *cough*Revenge*cough*. I know it only has 15 episodes this year but this seems like a show with a finite storyline so I really question what episode 10, 11, 12, etc much less season two will look like.

BOTTOM LINE: I will stick with Hostages for now but I have real skepticism about the long term viability. It's also going to need to up the intensity a little bit for me to stick with it beyond the next episode or two. There are certain promising elements but a lot of questions. Hopefully they have a vision and some answers to keep the show from going off the rails.