A 10-episode tale of a near-future Los Angeles surrounded by a wall so tall – hundreds of feet – even Donald Trump might find it excessive, “Colony” stars “Lost” vet Josh Holloway and is overseen by longtime “Lost” showrunner Carlton Cuse, who has gone onto writing and producing “The Strain,” “Bates Motel” and the American version of “The Returned.”
A puppet government runs the city while the municipality’s true rulers remain hidden. Peter Jacobson, who played Dr. Taub on 96 episodes of “House,” embodies one of the human puppets.
Holloway’s character works for Homeland Security, which now reports to The Invaders. Sara Wayne Callies (“The Walking Dead”) plays his wife, who works for The Resistance. They’ve got a 12-year-old son who was probably on the other side of The Wall when it went up.
... Mr. Holloway’s hair and grin are as magnificent as ever, and he and Ms. Callies, along with the show’s modest, quiet style and pace, keep us engaged through the early episodes. …
... Holloway and Callies make a fine and troubled team, and the rest of an increasingly remarkable cast headed by Baker is rolled out with promising lack of fanfare. …
... a sci-fi family drama that is surprisingly more than the sum of its tropes, which are many. … possesses a quality that I’ve always felt was missing (or underplayed) from these dystopian, world-destroying, alien-invasion soap operas: It’s sad. …
The San Francisco Chronicle says:
... Characters and details are what hold our interest, almost to the point where we don’t realize that the plot is fairly thin. That works for a while, but eventually the series begins to feel flat, and our interest begins to drift. …
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says:
... If it digs in to explore the conflicts inherent in collaboration, resistance and protection of family, this soapy saga might have legs. …
... when the show sticks to those parallels — the ethical choices occupation forces upon a conquered population, and the struggles it creates to just survive — Colony feels like something fresh, interesting and worth following. It’s when we get into the nitty gritty of Will’s police work, the stuff that provides the weekly engine for the series, that it feels a bit old-hat and rote. …
... Plot, plot, plot — said three times over because the first three installments of the series are weighed down with story and setup. … By episode four, titled "Blind Spot," the show finds a nice groove all around …
... frustratingly patchy and generic — unwilling to grapple in any consistent way with the moral and political implications of its premise — and key elements of the story remain disappointingly underdeveloped. Pride of place is given to characters and relationships that don’t have much depth, despite the efforts of a capable cast and occasionally arresting action scenes. Like an alien shape-shifter, “Colony” keeps trying to morph into a fairly standard cop show with some espionage elements. In a stumbling effort to create enigmatic mysteries, it just ends up being vague. …
10 p.m. Thursday. USA.
