The Narrows

This is the first in a column we are going to call The Narrows. If you know anything about the Batman mythos you know the Narrows are the seedy underbelly of Gotham city. Where the poor and the criminal live side by side. I thought it was a good name for a place to air grievances or other thoughts that did not fall in to the normal review category.
Which brings us to this columns topic. Why I won’t Be Reviewing Resurrection.

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Last year the internet was abuzz with high praise for a new ABC show based on a french show and book about people coming back from the dead. We did not watch the first few episodes, but heard great things about it. It is never good time to add a new show to the rotation, but my wife and I decided to give this a shot as we were being told it was great. So we decided to go to on demand and catch up.
The buzz was not wrong. This was a great show. Even watched it on the night of broadcast most of the time, which for us is a measure of how good something is. Only a few shows get that treatment, and it said quite a bit about how much Resurrection grabbed us with it’s returned from the dead plot.
Without recapping the series, these aren’t zombies or anything. They are people who died 40 years ago to just recently. Returned to life as the same people with the same issue, injuries, and memories they had before. What’s even stranger is the bodies they once had are still there. Buried, entombed, whatever. Whole new bodies, just like the old ones, inexplicably alive with no memory that time has passed. Creepy stuff, right? Compelling too as loved ones are reunited, etc. When the season finale came around with the military involved, the the main character (Omar Epps) surrounded by helicopters trying to get a returned boy out of town, and the rest of the Returned being rounded up like prisoners, I was hooked.
The cast is great and well rounded. The dad from that 70’s show, and some other recognizable character actors were fantastic. Although I kept expecting Martin Bellamy to call in Dr. House to solve the mystery and tell us it was Lupus.

house

So the premiere was Sunday, and I had a realization. I don’t want to write about this every week. I am not going to say the number of shows I do have to write about does not come in to play here. It is a part of it, but there is something greater than that.
The season premiere not only didn’t resolve the finale, it added more questions and avoided answering any. I am not saying that upset me or I was let down. In fact I enjoyed it and we will continue to watch every week. It is because of the nature of this whole narrative I don’t want to write about it every week.
There is only one question at the center of this show, how and why are the dead returning? Everything else is drama surrounding that. There is nothing wrong with that being the pure and true nature of the show.
However in this day and age, good ratings mean four, five seasons average for a television show? Once they answer that one question, the show is over. Therefore they cannot ever answer that question until the final season. So much like LOST, they need to go further and further down the rabbit hole each week.
I don’t want to spend five years writing columns about nothing. That is what it would be. Articles about mysteries NOT being solved. Until that last one, where I am convinced nothing can measure up or even make sense at this point anyway. The low hanging fruit is clones, and even that is a stretch that this one lonely town is where the powers that be decide to test their technology.
It’s a tough realization. That I like this show but I don’t want to write about it. Because in the end, I truly believe it will let me down. Unless it really is Lupus.

not lupus

Addendum: How telling is it that there is one picture of Omar Epps in this article and two of Hugh Laurie? That connection will never be broken!