NBC says of tonight’s installments of "The Event," titled “And Then There Were More” and “Inostranka”:
President Martinez (Blair Underwood) and his longtime Chief of Staff (guest star Roger Bart, "Desperate Housewives") charge the intelligence community with decrypting Thomas's (Clifton Collins, Jr.) satellite message, but more importantly determining to whom it was sent. While they are distracted, Thomas unveils a surprise attack, but he does not anticipate a heroic stand-off with Blake Sterling (Zeljko Ivanek), who learns an important lesson about Sleepers from Maya (guest star Clea DuVall, "Conviction"). Meanwhile, newly appointed Alaskan Senator Catherine Lewis (guest star Virginia Madsen, "Sideways") threatens to divulge information about the Mt. Inostranka detention facility on an episode of "HARDBALL with Chris Matthews" (playing himself). Elsewhere, Sean (Jason Ritter) and Leila (Sarah Roemer) get a fresh lead on the whereabouts of Samantha, but it leads them to a dramatic turn in their lives. James Dempsey (guest star Hal Holbrook, "Water for Elephants") foresees that he and Sean will once again cross paths. Ian Anthony Dale, Bill Smitrovich, Taylor Cole, and Lisa Vidal also star.
The big news is some fairly big stuff does happen tonight. Enough big stuff for these installments to feel more like a season finale than a mid-season premiere. Enough big stuff for me to want to watch next week’s episode. I’m even likely to try to stick with it till May, when (producers tell us) we’ll finally learn what The Event is. Things are moving forward.
But in some ways this series is starting to feel a little too much like “V.” There are now good aliens and bad aliens. And it bugs me that the “Event” aliens speak in American English when they’re alone with each other.
I also don’t like that tonight’s episode doesn’t tell us what Sophia Maguire’s plan was before her plane crashed in Alaska 66 years ago. Or why the aliens so resemble us. Or why Sophia has an Irish surname.
I get that they’re trying to fill 22 hours, but I also feel like more cards should be on the table already.
This show gets compared a lot to "Lost" and “24” (“Event” and “24” even share a key writer-producer in Evan Katz) but I wish it shared more with “24” than the running and kidnapping and gunplay. What it lacks most is a Jack Bauer tasked with making those impossible moral choices. Tonight the writers could have driven the bald, hateful national intelligence director, Blake Sterling (the ubiquitous Zeljko Ivanek), to commit some really fucked-up friendly-fire mayhem, and I believe we would have liked him a lot better for it. More than anything, this series needs characters we can sink our teeth into.
And that character is not Blair Underwood’s President Martinez, who gets bogged down in a boring storyline about a new U.S. senator from Alaska (Virginia Madsen) who wants to go public with what she just learned about the Inostranka detention center. It feels, of course, like a big step backward because Martinez himself wanted to go public with Inostranka at the beginning of the season. I grow weary of this secret government conspiracy, largely because too many people have known about Inostranka for too long for this conspiracy to appear credible.
The show frustrates mostly, I think, because I’d love to see a better, ballsier version of “The Event” on NBC. I miss “24” and I miss “Lost.” “The Event” at least feels like it’s somehow helping to keep the spin-offs of “Law & Order” and the shitty Jerry Bruckheimer hourlongs (“Miami Medical”! “Chase”!) and the latest unfunny rip-off of “Modern Family” (“Perfect Couples”!) at bay.
How it stacks up again other current NBC shows ratings-wise:
(ranked by last new episode; previous weeks in parentheses; repeats in gray)
1.3 (3.2) (3.3) (3.5) (3.7) (4.0) (4.5) (1.5) (1.7) (1.7) (1.0) (1.8) (3.7) (3.7) (---) (3.8) (3.6) (3.8) (4.0) (3.4) (3.8) (3.5) (3.7) (4.4) The Office
1.6 (2.5) (2.2) (2.6) (2.9) (1.7) (2.3) (2.5) (2.9) (1.3) (1.5) (1.9) (1.8) (2.5) (---) (2.1) (2.0) (2.2) (1.3) (2.7) (2.3) (2.6) (2.8) (3.2) Law & Order SVU
2.4 (2.7) (2.7) (3.0) (3.3) (3.2) (2.9) (3.2) (3.3) (---) (---) (4.0) (3.1) (2.9) (2.3) (2.5) (2.4) (2.4) (2.4) (2.6) (2.6) (2.5) (2.7) (2.9) Biggest Loser
--- (2.4) (2.2) (2.5) (2.4) (3.0) (3.2) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) Parks And Recreation
--- (2.3) (2.0) (2.3) (2.4) (2.4) (2.7) (1.2) (1.2) (1.1) (0.8) (1.4) (2.1) (2.3) (---) (2.2) (2.4) (2.4) (---) (2.2) (3.1) (2.1) (2.6) (2.6) 30 Rock
--- (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (1.9) (1.7) (1.7) (1.7) (---) (2.0) (2.2) (2.2) (2.4) (2.9) (3.6) The Event
1.9 (2.1) (1.9) (1.9) (2.2) (---) (2.1) (2.2) (2.3) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (1.9) (1.8) (2.1) (---) (2.0) (1.9) (2.0) (2.1) (2.0) (2.5) Parenthood
--- (1.8) (1.8) (1.8) (2.0) (2.2) (2.2) (1.2) (1.0) (0.9) (0.7) (1.2) (1.9) (1.9) (---) (1.9) (2.0) (1.9) (2.4) (1.9) (2.2) (1.8) (1.9) (2.2) Community
1.8 (1.7) (1.7) (1.7) (2.1) (2.1) (2.2) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) Harry’s Law
1.7 (1.7) (1.7) (1.7) (1.7) (1.9) (2.1) (0.8) (0.7) (0.7) (---) (---) (---) (2.0) (1.7) (1.8) (---) (2.0) (1.9) (1.9) (1.9) (1.9) (2.0) (2.0) Chuck
1.6 (1.4) (1.9) (1.7) (1.4) (1.5) (1.3) (---) (---) (1.4) (1.4) (0.7) (---) (1.2) (1.4) (1.3) (1.3) (1.0) (1.2) (1.6) (1.3) (1.6) (1.4) (---) Dateline
--- (1.4) (1.5) (1.7) (1.8) (1.9) (1.8) (---) (1.2) (1.2) (0.8) (1.5) (---) (---) (---) (2.6) (2.6) (2.7) (2.7) (2.3) (2.6) (2.5) (2.8) (3.6) Outsourced
--- (1.4) (1.4) (1.5) (1.4) (1.7) (2.1) (---) (---) (---) (---) (1.3) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) Perfect Couples
1.3 (1.4) (1.3) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) Who Do/You Are?
1.2 (1.2) (1.2) (1.3) (1.5) (1.6) (1.8) (1.0) (2.6) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) (---) The Cape
1.0 (1.0) (1.0) (1.7) (2.4) (1.4) (1.6) (1.5) (2.1) (---) (1.8) (1.8) (1.9) (1.6) (1.9) (2.1) (1.9) (1.8) (2.0) (2.1) (---) (---) (---) (---) Minute To Win It
8 p.m. Monday. NBC.
