Persons Unknown Delivers Suspense, Mystery, Psychological Thrills

I was hooked on the new Fox Summertime series offering Persons Unknown from the first episode.

I enjoy a good psychological thriller and this one has all the makings for an interesting hour-long show.

However, I am not sure about sustainability in the long run. It seems limited in what they can put these people through.

The premise is seven strangers wake up in a hotel to find themselves in a small, deserted town. They do not know how they got there and they are all from different places. Moreover, they do not seem to have anything in common with each other.

The town is attractive in an idyllic way, but empty of people except the seven strangers. Also there is a night desk clerk and a group of Chinese cooks who show up in a van to make the kidnapped folks their meals.

The cooks and the clerk do not seem to know anything about where they are either. The cooks, except one, do not speak English, arrive daily in the van and leave the same way each night. It's not clear where they go.

The hotel clerk claims he applied for the job, was told he got it and woke up in a room in the back of the hotel where he too lives. He is trapped like the rest of them, but unlike the others he does not seem to mind. "By now I'm used to it," he tells them.

When two of those kidnapped try to walk out of the town, which is set up in two three-block units, they fall unconscious when they reach the end of the street. A third person tries to pull them back and falls out also. The others fearing to venture over to their fallen comrades, leave them laying in the street until the Chinese cooks arrive in the evening, pick them up and bring them back to the hotel where the unconscious people revive.

Upon inspection the seven guests discover that all seven of them have received bio-implants, which they surmise gives off a drug as they near the edge of town to make them unconscious. But if that wasn't enough, there is also an invisible microwave force field around the town that fries anyone who tries to pass. In addition, there are cameras everywhere watching and listening in on their every move
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The seven people, three women and four men all seem to have their own secrets. None can figure out who would kidnap them. For the most part the acting is plausible though some of the reactions seem out of place.

For example, when they first wake up and try to get out of their hotel rooms, most of them seem angry, which is a fairly natural response. One of the "guests," Joe Tucker, played by actor Jason Wiles, figures out that a key to the room door is taped inside a Bible in the nightstand. When Marine Sgt. Graham McNair, played by Chadwick Boseman, bursts out of his room and grabs Joe in a type of choke hold and presses him up against the wall looking for answers, it didn't feel right. It seemed a little over the top
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But I suppose it's possible. But shortly afterward Charlie House, played by Alan Ruckman, gets semi-hysterical with anger and Mcnair strongly warns him to calm down and "keep your powder dry."

No one talks in phrases like that anymore, not even in the Marines. Furthermore, it seems that just a few minutes before McNair was threatening Joe and now he's the voice of reason. It felt odd. But that is a minor flaw.

The main point of all fiction is to make the viewer willingly suspend their disbelief. And mine was eagerly suspended. Each episode reveals more oddities and clues. Some of the clues when revealed made the hair on my arms stand up.

All the while these people are in this ghost town , San Francisco reporter Renby, played by Gerald Kyd, working for a sin-sational tabloid has a strong feeling that the mother who abandoned her child at a park did not just leave on her own.

Doggedly pursuing the mystery despite being warned to forget about the mother and physically assaulted by a sleazy private detective, the reporter breaks into the PI's office and looks at his computer records.

He sees a file showing a deposit of $10,000 in the PI's account and a phone number. He calls the number on the office phone and gets a high-pitched electronic squealing. Less than 30 seconds after hanging up the office phone, he gets a call on his cell phone. When he answers he hears a high-pitched electronic squeal. THEY - know - he - is - there!

In addition to those actors already introduced, the other kidnapped people on Persons Unknown include: Daisy Betts as Janet Cooper (the mother who was kidnapped). She gets a message in a fortune cookie that says "kill Joe and you'll go free;" Andy Greenfield as the night manager. He gets beat up by two of the guests who believe he is lying. He escapes and is promoted to day manager.

Kate Lang Johnson playing the part of sexy Tori, whose father is some influential government official, whom she apparently tries to irritate every chance she gets; Tina Holmes as Moira Doherty, a school crisis management counselor - or so she says. But why did she hide a hospital patient wrist bracelet? Sean O'Brien as William Blackham, a self-serving bully, who claims to be a car salesman.; Alan Ruck as Charlie House - is he hiding a possible murder/mercy killing of his dying, bedridden wife?"

Other characters in the show include: Lee Purcell as Eleanor Sullivan, editor of a tabloid rag who keeps urging Renby to pursue other stories; Reggie Lee, Oriental waiter in ghost town who can speak a little English.

Most importantly, why are these people in this town? Who did this? What do they want? And what's going to happen next?

If you need to catch up of the episodes you missed, go to the Fox website to view the past showings, or there are a number of other websites that are showing the episodes including the pilot.
This is a great summer series and it airs Mondays at 8 p.m. There are enough plot twists, suspense, and psychological danger in Persons Unknown to make you say out loud, "I did not see that coming."