The season finale of Lost has left a hole that many want to fill.  They think the trick is to hook an audience in with a big mystery with the promise that if they just keep watching all the answers will be revealed. Persons Unknown comes from the fine writing pedigree that brought us The Usual Suspects and said to be carefully constructed over a 13 episode arch.  Interestingly this series has been financed differently to the norm, FOX pre-sold the series to international markets, then made it in locations that offer great tax breaks, the finished series was then shopped to US networks where NBC picked it up.

The story opens when single mother Janet is in the park with her daughter, distracted by issues relating to her ex-husband her daughter goes missing.  Panicked Janet looks for her before being kidnapped herself.  She wakes up in a hotel, quickly she finds she is not the only one kidnapped.  There is a stereotypical soldier, stereotypical party girl, the man who doesn’t want t talk about his past, the man who owns a car dealership, a woman with medical knowledge. Together they start exploring outside the hotel where they find themselves in a ghost town.  Two of them decide to leave, but when reaching the end of the road they pass out.  Panicked the remaining members hide until Chinese restaurant opens up, failing to get answers from the staff about why they have kidnapped they settle down to dinner. At the end of the meal they open fortune cookies which I assume will mean more later on in the series.  After a tough day with no questions answered the group return to the hotel, because what else is there to do.

When I first heard about this series I thought it was going to be like the excellent low budget movie Cube , an interesting study on character and how the individual’s unique skills benefit the group. This is not however where Persons Unknown is heading.

I think a lot of people still feel burnt by Lost, the set up of a big mystery and then the failure to deliver on that promise.  Flash Forward which in many ways was gearing up to take over the sprawling interwoven sci-fi hole left by Lost was cancelled after the first series leaving people with a bizarre cliff-hanger and no answers. Persons Unknown may fall foul to audience apathy as the pilot fails to explain anything, instead just opening more mystery.  The characters never really make any bold choice or learn from their experience, they all follow each other around like a pack of sheep as if individualism and character might get in the way of devices that lead the plot. When Lost first started individual character journey’s was what grabbed the audience the mystery came second.  In Persons Unknown the mystery is right up front and is the only thing people talk about, I don’t care about these characters because the writers have given me nothing.  Sure she has a child who will now be raised by a possibly abusive grandmother, but I have not seen anything of that child to care.  It is a cheat, shorthand tricks for why should feel and urgency for the characters to escape.

Three episodes in and the series is already haemorrhaging viewers at such rate that the full 13 episodes may not broadcast, another reason why viewers may not keep tuning in, they have been down this path before investing in a show only to see it get cancelled.

Created / Written by: Christopher McQuarrie
Directed by: Michael Rymer
Starring: Alan Ruck,  Jason Wiles,  Daisy Betts, Chadwick Boseman, Kate Lang Johnson, Gerald Kyd, Tina Holmes, Sean O’Bryan, Lola Glaudini
Date premièred: 7^th June 2010 (NBC)
UK Details: TBA