First Impressions - Threshold

Next up on the Lost knock off tour of the fall season is Threshold. It was being hyped as being the best sci-fi show since the X-Files. Of course this begs the question, has there been any good sci-fi show’s since the X-Files? But anyways. The show follows Dr. Molly Caffery, play by Carla Gugino last seen naked in Sin City, who specializes in on worst cases scenario. Wow, a government official that specializes in solving worst case scenarios, what a novel idea. That may be the biggest science fiction part of the whole show, a government that is actually prepared for disaster. But I digress. One of Caffery’s scenario plays out when something strange happens on a ship in the Atlantic Ocean that essentially prove the existence of extraterrestrials or ET for short.

So the government enlists Caffery to round up a team of experts to examine the ship who really don’t have a choice on whether they want to join or not. The other alterative seem to be some Guatanamo Bay type resort if they don’t help. I do like this and would not have any problem if our own government would do the same thing in extreme situations. The experts in question include Nigel Fenway, who apparently a big thing to Trekkies but us normal people hasn’t a clue who he is. Fenway is forensic microbiologists brought in to study the effects of the aliens have on what they come in contact with. He also seems jaded with the whole thing, but goes along nonetheless. Lucas Pegg is an astronautical engineer who is the only team member who seems happy to be there. But the highlight of the team is Arthur Ramsey, who is the best mathematician in the nation and a well versed linguist. Oh yeah, and he’s a very horny midget (or dwarf, I always get those two confused). The best part of the whole show was when he was caught holding Caffery’s underwear. Tough guy Cavennaugh closes out the team as the muscle. What’s Cavennaugh’s last name? And seriously, what’s with the extra “N”? Well your guess is good as mine. But since he’s black ops, the government may have brainwashed him to forget it like in Men in Black. And the whole team reports to the Deputy National Security Advisor played by Roc himself, Charles S Dutton.

So once the team is assembled they head onto the ship to find only one survivor who happened to be Ethan Rom, who has suddenly become the go-to creepy dude. Something is seriously wrong with the dude who is shot multiple times, jumps into the ocean then somehow makes to Caffery’s house later that night, then disappears into thin air. Then throughout the whole show, there is a pattern that looked exactly like the image that was in the hot chick’s eye on Point Pleasant. But hear in lies the problem of the show for me, it was hyped as an X-Files type of show, yet the show feels like a singular X-Files episode that they turned into a whole series. And that didn’t fair too well when Tru Calling tried to do the exact same thing. Plus, if Mulder and Scully were on this case, they would have the case solved already.

Verdict: I’d like to think I have better things to do on a Friday night than watch this show. Granted I don’t, but I’d like to thing it anyway. Might give it another try because when all the people showed up like it was the night of the living dead intrigued me.