The Nine (ABC)

Posted by ad on Aug 7, 2006 in TV | 2 comments

This post originally appeared on Screen*Play.

It was a regular day.

I try (and sometimes fail) to live by the rule ‘less is more.’  I say this at the opening of this review because there is really only one word needed to describe this pilot and new series – gripping.  With that, the first of Screen*Play’s ABC pilot reviews goes to The Nine, one of our fave new series of the fall 2006-2007 season.

The Nine (ABC)

ABC Summary (altered to avoid spoilers): Nine strangers end up in a Los Angeles bank on a fateful morning, as two men lock the doors, pull their guns and announce a bank robbery. 57 hours later, SWAT storms the bank, rescuing the hostages and capturing the robbers. These nine survivors are now banded together as an unlikely family, as they re-enter their lives and grapple with how this seminal event has changed them forever.

MILD SPOILER ALERT: The key to The Nine is in the first 10 minutes of the pilot which lead us straight into the unknown. 57 hours have gone by but the viewer has no idea what happened, leading our minds to wander into some dark places as we try to put the pieces together.

Little bits of information permeate the storyline of the nine as we watch them live their lives after surviving something, well, my mind thinks was really, really, really bad. Rape? Torture? Execution?  Only the writers know for sure. Each episode will begin in the same format as the pilot, with a chronological reveal of the events of that fateful day…10 minutes at a time. It’s not about the cliffhanger here but the show-opener.

The characters of the show are from all walks of life, who obviously just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. How each one is affected and changes is the story for the rest of the show’s hour and how we learn what happened to them.  If there was ever truth in the saying you can’t judge a book by its cover, it would be here. Like a good game of Clue, if you think you know who-did-what-and-when, me thinks you’re in for a big surprise.

The cast is a whose who of great TV including Scott Wolf (Party of Five/Everwood) as Dr. Jeremy Kates, Kim Raver (24) as Assistant D.A. Kathryn Hale, Tim Daly (Wings) as detective Nick Cavanaugh, bank teller Eva Rios played by Lourdes Benedicto (24), and Chi McBride (Boston Public) as bank manager Malcolm Jones.

Wednesday’s at 10p
series premiere: oct. 4th