Touch finally previewed last Wednesday, and by the looks of things it touched many — including us — but it wasn’t without its problems.
It was difficult not to get caught up in the sweeping emotion of the Touch pilot. It was a very cinematic and enjoyable experience, of that there is no doubt.
But the big question is whether the show can sustain the story it wants to tell. Unfortunately, as suspected, Touch is already leaning more towards the tried and trusted procedural format, where the conflicts are largely wrapped up in a neat bow by the end of the episode — this was certainly the case with the pilot. So much so that Kiefer Sutherland’s Martin Bohm even nabs a hug from his ‘untouchable’ son before the end credits!
The events in this episode were incredibly hurried. I lost count at the number of moments that would have benefited from more time being spent with them (hello, Danny Glov..). The idea that Bohm and Son will have a new set of people to connect in each episode doesn’t fill me with a great deal of investment.
I want to get to know these people (and those who aid them) while gradually peeling back the layers of the central storyline. I find it somewhat ironic that a story all about the human need to connect, plans to tell that story over a seemingly disconnected, fragmented canvass.
I know Tim Kring’s bummed about Heroes, we all are(!), but he’s come up with another intriguing premise that presents an array of questions that would, in my opinion, be a lot more rewarding if each episode was plugged into a purposeful overarching storyline.
And that’s not to say there isn’t a semblance of seriable potential in Touch — there certainly is, since we’re covering it. But as with all shows that adopt a serial-procedural fusion, it’s about how much of that serial goodness we actually get, and how often we get it. We’ll soon see how Touch executes its plan.
In the meantime, here are a few mysteries with overarching potential that I hope the show starts to explore when the series officially launches March 19 on FOX:
- How does Jake’s ability work? (Arthur Teller touched on some intriguing concepts).
- If Jake is bringing order to chaos, what are the consequences of not being able to connect certain people? How far does this thing go in the grand scheme of the universe?
- When did Jake himself learn that bringing people together was his destiny?
- How many ‘others’ are there like Jake?
- Will the show introduce a ‘Big Bad’ or major source of ongoing conflict for the Bohm Boys?
- What are Arthur and Clea’s experiences that were hinted at in the pilot, and how do they inform the overarching story?
PERSON OF INTEREST Renewed For Season 2
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ONCE UPON A TIME OBSERVATIONS: 1.22 A Land Without Magic
FRINGE OBSERVATIONS: 4.22 Brave New World: Part 2
ONCE UPON A TIME OBSERVATIONS: 1.21 An Apple Red As Blood
FRINGE OBSERVATIONS: 4.21 Brave New World: Part 1
ONCE UPON A TIME OBSERVATIONS: 1.20 The Stranger
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I feel a trend forming in Fox series, and unfortunately it’s becoming gradually stale and oddly boring;
Most of Fox’s show’s tend to portray their (limited) “universal” views on the topics of Destiny as if they’re forcing their “religious” scriptures upon us.
Every show tends to be about a universal Event, involving several plot lines occurring simultaneously; which to me is a weak attempt to imitate influential directors such as Kieslowski or Iñarritu. Then there’s a “special” characters, who’s special for no rational reason, and there are “moral checkpoints” to be passed by the central characters who seem to be ignorant of the situation…I feel that Fox, and other prime network are drowning in their own cliches.
I’m sure you can relate my examples to certain shows such as Alias, Lost, Fringe, Flashforward, 4400, Alcatraz, Person of interest… and now Touch. Now Fringe also incorporates a certain “comic-book” feel its narrative which makes it endearing and consumable for the most part when it doesn’t overthrow its moral boundaries. Fringe S04E10 was a perfect example of the show’s failure when it comes to forcing the network’s view on the global entanglement.
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A interesting start, with some clever synchronicity going on.
As to seriability, the show may get pulled towards it as it progresses. Procedurals are very limiting creatively for a writer, so at some point…
As to how Jake’s ability could work…
The great psychologist Carl Jung evolved the concept of ‘synchronicity‘ with the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Wolfgang Pauli.
They were brought together by countless accounts of strange coincidences, and saw — beneath the seemingly random and chaotic jungle of daily events — what they called an ‘Acausal Connecting Principle‘, a vast and hidden interaction between all that happens.
I’d be surprised if Jung & Pauli’s thesis wasn’t mentioned at some point in future episodes.
It’s not beyond the bounds of plausibility that an autistic savant, unfettered by conventional thinking or even normal brain function, could glimpse deeper than into the hyper-mathematical principles of synchronicity permeating the universe.
Also, there are accounts of people who have freakish sensitivity to electromagnetic frequencies.
Birds, for instance, navigate by using the magnetic field of the earth. Not so long ago, biologists found that have crystals of the magnetic mineral magnetite in their beaks, that act as built-in ‘organic compasses’.
It has since been found that many other animals have these crystals including humans. What is not known is precisely how the neural processing works, or how humans — with their higher brain functions — might employ this magnetic sense, albeit at an unconscious level.
Who knows what novel ways a savant may find to use the magnetic sense, called magnetoception, dormant in all of us?
So take an autistic savant, with, say, a genetic anomaly of higher than normal magnetite in his brain, and you have a fringe science explanation of how Jake could do what he does, and why he likes to climb cellular masts.
Somewhat akin to the frequency-sensing character in Alphas?
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mmm… that link to magnetoception doesn’t work with the ‘http’ in front. Must be the dns routing at Wikipedia or something.
So here it is, just in case anyone cares: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetoception
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@Aria, Underseer — very interesting thoughts indeed, thanks for the read.
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I think it have a pretty good start! Time or course will tell, but there was a buzz in Hollywood the following day as everyone was talking about it. I commented about it when I had William Katt (“Greatest American Hero” on my live radio show) The following day.
-Ethan Tudor W.
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