I can’t help it. Whenever I hear or see something about NBC’s new drama The Event, which debuts on Monday night in the U.S. (and on Channel 4 in the U.K. in October), all I can think about is M. Night Shyamalan’s risible The Happening, and poor Alan Ruck having to deliver one of the most awful lines of dialogue in the history of movies: “There appears to be an event occurring.” Is this really the best thing to have potential viewers thinking about?
NBC’s official site for the show is remarkably cagey as to what the show is actually about, though it does promise something along the lines of “the biggest cover-up in U.S. history,” which will of course be exposed, eventually, probably somewhere around sweeps weeks in Season Seven, and that we’ll be
Begging For More
Get ready for the ride of a lifetime. Each week you’ll get more clues. Each week you’ll be more invested.
How can any show possibly live up to this? It got “huge buzz at Comic Con”! (but what doesn’t?), where showrunner Evan Katz apparently told Comic Con crowds, “We don’t want people to feel like we’re making this up as we go along.” (See? They know we’re maybe burnt out on shows that start off intriguing and then go nowhere.) SciFi Squad has a theory about aliens, or maybe terrorists — hey, maybe it’s about alien terrorists! io9 can only ask, plaintively, if perhaps The Event mightn’t be a decent enough show (if we keep our fingers crossed and eat all our vegetables).
Why do I smell such an ominous vibe coming off NBC’s The Event? Am I alone in this?
Of course I’m going to watch, in the hopes that the show will actually be entertaining, or perhaps in the hopes that it’ll be a train wreck like Shyamalan’s movie. I just hope it’s not like AMC’s new conspiracy drama Rubicon, the second dullest show on TV at the moment (after Syfy’s Haven).
(If you have a suggestion for a QOTD, feel free to email me. Responses to this QOTD sent by email will be ignored; please post your responses here.)
(please click through for commenting, social networking, tags, and more)