TV: Threshold

Dr. Molly Caffrey (Carla Gugino) deals in worst-case scenarios. What happens if a virus breaks out all over the country? She’s got a contingency plan for that. What about a nuclear holocaust? Check. What if there’s some sort of extra-terrestrial attack? There’s a plan for that too. And it’s called “Threshold,” which is also the name for this new show on CBS.

The pilot starts out with a strange object hovering over a naval ship out in the middle of the ocean. The object is pulsating and looks kind of like a lit up Christmas ornament with spikes coming out of it. It makes the sound of broken glass shards grinding together. As a result, Dr. Caffrey is picked up in a helicopter and brought to a government building of some sort. There Deputy National Security Advisor J.T. Blaylock (Charles S. Dutton) informs her of the possible alien nature of the object, and she assembles a crew to go out to the ship and check it out. Blaylock assigns “ghost agent” Cavennaugh (Brian Van Holt) to protect Molly and her “Red Team” at all costs. The Red Team consists of forensic microbiologist Nigel Fenway (Brent Spiner), astronautical engineer Lucas Pegg (Rob Benedict) (I bet you didn’t know there was any such thing as an astronautical engineer—but it’s a good thing there is for this sort of situation, huh?), and linguist/mathematician Arthur Ramsey (Peter Dinklage).

When the team arrives at the ship, they find almost all of the crew dead, and the remaining members have been somehow . . . changed . . . by the strange object. The one member on whom we mainly focus is Gunneson (played by the creepy guy who kidnapped Claire on “Lost,” William Mapother. Man, he really knows how to do creepy). The crew has him under control, but before they leave the ship, he is able to break free with seemingly superhuman strength and jumps from the ship into the ocean. Sadly, when the crew leaves the ship, they are informed by Cavennaugh that they need to destroy it, because the North Koreans are on their way, and we wouldn’t want them getting their hands on…well, whatever might be on that ship, right?

Intriguingly, Molly, Cavennaugh and Lucas have all been exposed to the same thing as the crew from watching a video of the strange object in the sky (a crew member taped the proceedings). They all have the same strange dream, and they haven’t been feeling quite right. There are other elements as well that you’ll be able to pick up on if you watch the show. That summary is a bit more lengthy than what I would usually do, but I couldn’t find a decent summary of the first two episodes anywhere online, so that will have to do.

I’m enjoying this show so far for a few reasons. The acting is all very good, and it’s good to finally see Peter Dinklage get more exposure. When you’re doing a show about alien life, it’s easy not to be realistic without too much criticism. The nice thing is that they pull it off here, making the people and their reactions seem real. There’s no way of knowing if any “worst-case scenario contingency plan” would work, and they don’t make the protocol seem rigid. They adapt the plan as they go. Someone like Molly, who drafts these things for the government and then suddenly is thrust into a leadership position probably wouldn’t be extremely comfortable in that role, and Gugino does a good job of conveying that. Each of the supporting cast fills his role well and contributes to the overall believability of the potentially unbelievable premise. They’re not comfortable being in a situation where they can’t tell family members where they are and what they’re doing. They’re essentially sequestered from the rest of the world while they figure this out.

The writing on the show is excellent, and keeps the viewer engaged throughout the whole show. There’s a lot of room for error when you’re talking about physics and math and the like, and there’s also a lot of room for confusing the viewer. The writers do a good job of keeping it relatively simple and not making us feel like idiots. I’ll be telling TiVo to keep this one.

Final Score: 4 cents.