Happy New Year, all you geek potatoes out there! The holiday break is over and a new calendar year is starting, which can only mean the beginning of a new television season.
Today the Divine One is here to talk about the new sci-fi drama from the USA Network, Colony. Brought to you from super producer Carlton Cuse (Lost, The Strain), this show takes place in the not-too-distant future about an unidentified group that has taken control of Los Angeles in a hostile takeover. Are they aliens? Are they some super-terrorist group? We don’t know, and who knows when the writers are going to tell us.
For now, we are introduced to the Bowman family living in the occupied part of Los Angeles. Will Bowman (Lost’s Josh Holloway) who works for an auto repair shop, and his wife Katie (The Walking Dead and Prison Break’s Sarah Wayne Callies) who used to run a bar and has three children. Well–two children, currently. They were separated from their eldest son during the attack and have no idea if he is dead or alive. And there just so happens to be a several thousand foot high concrete wall around the entire city following the attack, making it a little hard to go out searching for him.
The first episode opens up and life seems quite normal, with Will having a usual, picturesque breakfast with his family. But when he kisses his wife and kids and heads off to work, we can tell he’s not following his typical daily routine. He meets up with a futuristic coyote to hide him in a semi-truck; a move made so he can get across the wall and search for his missing son. It’s also a risky maneuver that ends up failing, of course; but things aren’t over for him quite just yet.
The mayor/governor — whatever he is — Proxy Alan Snyder (House’s Peter Jacobson) has found out Will’s secret: he used to be an FBI agent. Snyder wants his help in tracking down the resistance fighters that have been recently terrorizing the Colony by setting off bombs, killing many people in the process. But of course there’s a catch! If he doesn’t… then him and his family will be punished for his attempted escape and be forced to work into the labor camps. Well, shit. The guy just wants his son back, people!
Not surprisingly, this first episode of Colony is mostly just series set-up. But instead of a jump into who the attackers are and how they are going to overthrow them, this show starts out thankfully simple: family and human relations. There are also the daily struggles of life by showing the “Red Hats”, the military force that is in constant presence everywhere in the city.
In usual LA fashion, there are several instances of arrests that are met with little surprise to the public. And there are small floating mechanical drones all over the skies keeping any eye out, especially at night when a strict curfew is enforced (how’s this any different from LA’s “Ghetto Birds”?). All the acting is satisfying, chiefly due to the smarts of a veteran producer like Cuse who chose established TV actors instead of random breakout talents.
My only worry is, at some point, we’re going to have to know who this bad-ass group is that overtook the city; and as we all know from Lost, sometimes that answer is just better left in the twilight zone.
You can watch the first episode of Colony right here, right now, or wait Thursday, January 14th at 10pm on USA.