Believe (NBC): The new show from Alfonso Cuarón and J.J. Abrams (1 Viewer)

Premieres tonight at 10/9c before starting in its normal timeslot at 9:00 PM Sundays.The show follows a Christ-like young girl with mysterious powers and an escaped death row inmate freed by a mysterious religious order as they stay one step ahead of a mysterious villain who wants to utilize the girl's powers for his own ends.

Didn't know about this. How was it?

My favorite pilot in a long, long time.There were a few goofy moments, like when the death row inmate hopping off the stretcher right in front of the security guard and running off down the busy hospital corridor without anybody reacting to him. But the show had an excellent visceral quality, right from the two-minute long opening shot of the car crash and subsequent murders. The "Fugitive"-esque structural device of benevolent outlaws helping others while staying a step ahead of the people hunting them is a proven winner. And the casting is excellent. There's a simplicity to it (without being simplistic) that's a refreshing break from the complex and clever dramas that are all the rage right now.From their first scene together, Johnny Sequoyah (as Bo, the young girl with incredible abilities) and Jake McLaughlin (as the escaped death row inmate recruited to protect her) have terrific chemistry together. The parent-child dynamic arrives fully-formed. Special Agent Dale Cooper himself, Kyle MacLachlan, brought an interesting well-adjustedness to his handful of scenes as the evil mastermind behind the plot to kidnap Bo. Delroy Lindo is one of the great character actors of our time, and he's terrific here as the leader of the team tasked with ensuring Bo's safety until the time is right for her to reveal herself to the world.The show does a really good job of navigating Bo's character without revealing hardly anything of her back story. Unlike Jake on "Touch", she's a socially well-adjusted ten year old. There are moments when she's not the slightest bit precocious, and seems like any other ten year old, and then there are moments when you see the Christ-like figure with the secrets of the universe in her head. There's a matter-of-factness to the supernatural elements; she doesn't fully understand what she can do, but she doesn't have an angst about it either. She's never known what it's like to be "normal", so all of this craziness is what life is like for her. And while she can do things that nobody else can do, she's not infallible.

It was alright, but leaving the money like that and the hospital scene kind of made me shake my head.

If that was a county hospital, no surprises.Those that live in Indianapolis...That scene would be right at home in Wishard.Not likely at Methodist or Community.(Wishard is notorious in Indianapolis. One if the best county hospitals in the country. If you are ever in Indy and either get shot, or summer a car accident you barely survive...you go to Wishard. There is no chaos that hospital hasn't seen.)

Dag gum phone...Suffer, not summer(How does a phone auto-correct that?)

schan1269 said:

If that was a county hospital, no surprises. Those that live in Indianapolis... That scene would be right at home in Wishard. Not likely at Methodist or Community. (Wishard is notorious in Indianapolis. One if the best county hospitals in the country. If you are ever in Indy and either get shot, or summer a car accident you barely survive...you go to Wishard. There is no chaos that hospital hasn't seen.)

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Its no longer called Wishard. After a big donation they changed their name to Eskenazi.

Meh. I thought it was typical NBC-fare trying to pull too many punches. I could definitely see it turning into a hit for NBC though...hell, if people will watch garbage like The Following I can certainly see how they would watch this garbage.

Delroy Lindo is always good though (which was the main reason I gave this a shot).

Mark_B said:

Its no longer called Wishard. After a big donation they changed their name to Eskenazi.

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Since I don't live down there anymore, missed that. But searching Eskenazi comes up with less.Even the Wiki (and other sources) Still show Wishard with Eskenazi in parenthesis. The city (as far I know...from what I knew back when) is irritated Wishard was left out of the "IU Health buying binge."

The actress' name is "Johnny?"

Aaron Silverman said:

The actress' name is "Johnny?"

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Yup. Not sure if it's short for Johanna or something, or if it's a reverse Boy Named Sue situation.

Adam Lenhardt said:

Yup. Not sure if it's short for Johanna or something, or if it's a reverse Boy Named Sue situation.

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Up until 1930, any variation of "John" with two nn's was a girls name.When Jonie(of Chachi) was chosen for a TV name..."nn" names started falling away.

I've only been able to watch half of the pilot so far but, from what I've seen I like quite a bit.

schan1269 said:

Up until 1930, any variation of "John" with two nn's was a girls name. When Jonie(of Chachi) was chosen for a TV name..."nn" names started falling away.

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That's interesting. And it's "Joanie."

Aaron Silverman said:

That's interesting. And it's "Joanie."

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When I was typing that...I was having a Happy Days brain fart....(which is why I went Chachi...also, evolution of names is a hobby of mine...like Meryl and Glenn...)

If you hadn't mentioned Chachi I wouldn't have had any idea what you were talking about!

Ayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

So is Cuaron going to continue to write and/or direct these, or is he just gonna be Exec Producer (that is, the guy in charge of putting his name on the picture)?

Probably the latter. He just won an Oscar for director, so I suspect his plate is full of upcoming big-screen film projects.

I'd imagine his role will be similar to Steven Speilberg's role on the shows he executive produces, like "Falling Skies." He probably sits in on the high-level production meetings, has input on story and some of the hiring decisions, but leaves the day-to-day production to the showrunners. In an interview with IGN, he said he's open to returning and directing future episodes if he can fit it in between his feature projects.

With the pedigree behind the pilot, tonight's episode was the real test of what the day-to-day production team could do. The show has experienced quite a bit of behind-the-scenes strife, and NBC has invested a lot of time including reshoots to iron out the problems.

Based on this episode, I'd say they corrected whatever needed correcting. The core qualities of the pilot remain -- Bo helping people, Tate and Bo on the run from the authorities, Tate and Bo's relationship -- but they've been placed in a framework that can better sustain a series. After so many villains that lie and mislead sometimes seemingly for the sheer fun of it, it was nice to see in Roman Skouras an apparently forthright adversary. When the FBI agent arrived, he let the cat out of the bag without ceremony and gave a blow-by-blow of what this situation was about and why. He withheld information, like the fact that Tate is Bo's father, but he was way more forthcoming than I thought he'd be.

The FBI agent, for her part, asked smart questions and did approximately what a real FBI agent would do if a child went missing with an escaped convict. It was nice to see the show account for that and start to grapple with it. It stretched credibility a little bit that the waitress at the casino restaurant wouldn't have seen the Amber alert, but not so much that I couldn't continue to suspend my disbelief.
The whole show is built around the relationship between Tate and Bo, and that they continued to get exactly right. They thawed the ice enough to show real development while leaving plenty of road left to travel. By the end of the episode, Tate had accepted responsibility for Bo in a way he hadn't at the start. Most importantly, when the chips were down and they appeared to be surrounded by the cops, he had a choice to make. He could have tried to run, or he could have tried to convince Bo to use her powers to rain fire and brimstone down upon the cops. Instead, he sided with Winter's vision for her future. He chose not to expose her to any more violence, and asked her not to become an instrument of violence. At that moment, protecting who she is was more important to him than his own continued life and freedom. For the first time, he was really her father.