PILOT REVIEW: Ransom

RANSOM

Starring: Luke Roberts, Sarah Greene, Brandon Jay McLaren, Nazneen Contractor

Created by David Vainola and Frank Spotniz
Written by David Vainola & Frank Spotniz, Directed by Richard J. Lewis

Ransom is a new co-production that got a preview after football but will actually air on Saturday, the first non-burnoff scripted show to air on the night in years. In case you can't tell by the title, Ransom is centered on a team of crisis negotiators who deal with hostage situations. The team is led by veteran Eric Beaumont (Luke Roberts) and includes newbie Maxine Carlson (Sarah Greene), Oliver Yates (Brandon Jay McLaren), and Zara Hallam (Nazneen Contractor).

This show was pretty mundane and by the book from start to finish. Nothing too exciting, nothing too terrible. It felt like a ho-hum episode of one of the many CBS crime dramas. There were a couple things that bothered me here though right at the beginning of the episode. First of all, since when do police let in someone who shows a business card as identification as they did when Maxine Carlson wanted to force her way into the hostage situation. Secondly, there was an odd phone call between Eric Beaumont and his teen daughter in the midst of the crisis which seemed especially weird when they didn't really go back to that story at all.

As far as the performances go, they were mostly forgettable. The team could have been transplanted from any CBS procedural over the years. The case of the week was not all that compelling with a boring villain and no interesting plot twists or turns in a standard ransom case. In fact, I have a hard time believing future episodes will be that much more interesting. This felt like ransom episodes of shows like Criminal Minds. How is a show going to create very different stories week after week? Given the blandness of this pilot, I doubt it's going to be able to.

WILL I WATCH IT AGAIN?
Probably not.