When CBS announced its plan for a drama about a “government contingency analyst,” the idea didn’t resonate quite the way it does post-Hurricane Katrina.
Now the prospect of a worst-case-scenario planner, a brilliant government employee who prepares for natural disasters, alien invasions and other catastrophes, is appealing.
If only Carla Gugino had been running the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Gugino (“Karen Sisco”) heads “Threshold,” a thriller that has its two-hour premiere at 8 p.m. Friday on KCNC-Channel 4. The drama is one of the most appealing of the sci-fi, alien-invasion series proliferating this fall.
While she carries the show, she is surrounded by worthy co-stars: Charles Dutton as deputy national security adviser; Brent Spiner (Data on “Star Trek: The Next Generation”) as a disillusioned and bitter NASA scientist; Peter Dinklage (“Elf” and “The Station Agent”) as a linguistics and mathematics expert; Robert Patrick Benedict (“Felicity”) as a UFO specialist; and Brian Van Holt (“Black Hawk Down”), as a covert operative. “Blade” film series writer-director David Goyer directed the stunning pilot.
From the opening scenes aboard a Navy freighter, it’s clear something creepy is going on in the Atlantic Ocean. The fish are swimming in a peculiar geometric pattern, the cockroaches start spinning in the same odd shapes. The shapes are fractals that speak volumes, mathematically, to the scientists who encounter them. A glowing, hovering, shape-changing who-knows-
what in the sky may be messing with human DNA. And it’s apparently under “intelligent control.”
“My job is to scare you and hopefully prepare you,” the all-business Dr. Molly Caffrey (Gugino) tells an audience of first responders during a practice exercise.
When the real alien thing shows up, her plan code-named Threshold is put into action. Beyond figuring out what’s happening and recommending how to react, she’s charged with keeping a lid on the finding.
As Molly is whisked from her home and her solitary frozen dinner to a top-secret government command post, she quickly assembles her choice of eccentric geniuses to deal with the threat.
Rounded up for duty are Dr. Nigel Fenway (Spiner), an M.D. and former 1960s radical; Lucas Pegg (Benedict), an optimistic astrophysicist hoping for a peaceful close encounter; and Arthur Ramsey (Dinklage), a linguist-mathematician with a penchant for booze, gambling and strippers.
“Not exactly Charlie’s Angles are they?” says their covert-ops minder (Van Holt).
Molly and company are overwhelmed by the sight and sound of the alien being. In fact, just watching a videotape of the thing makes their noses and ears bleed. Next, their dreams are invaded by whatever the four- or five-dimensional being is. (Dream time is also when Gugino runs around in skimpy lingerie and some of the set designs look like the low-budget early days of the original “Star Trek.”)
Phase Two of Molly’s Threshold scenario is containment and crisis management. Phase Two for viewers is suspension of disbelief. At this point, either give in to the conceit or risk a nosebleed from over-analysis of the premise.
“The minute we give in to our preconceptions, we’re dead,” Molly says. “We have to assume we’re dealing with an intelligence so advanced it’s bordering on the supernatural.”
Assume away and enjoy the ride. Resistance is futile.
The producers say the show is about “a global paradigm shift.” What they mean is they’ve got a mythology cooking, on the order of “The X-Files” that could play out over time. Of course what they really, truly mean is that they’re riding the trend launched by “Lost” and hoping for similar ratings luck.
According to executive producer Brannon Braga, “This is a show that takes place all over the country and eventually the world. There will be alien things, very strange things happening in very public places that our team has to go investigate. … The public is definitely at risk on a week-to-week basis.”
In light of the recent post-hurricane disaster and ongoing global high anxieties, the time may be right for a cool risk analyst.
TV critic Joanne Ostrow can be reached at 303-820-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com.
