'PERSONS UNKNOWN' 1.4 - "Exit One"

[SPOILERS] There are times when I start to feel involved with Persons Unknown, because a character moment works or there's a decent twist in the tale, but it's weighed down by a few basic problems: the unpopulated town is a tedious backdrop, and there's no obvious villain. I keep comparing this show to The Prisoner (the similarities are too stark not to), and that show kept its location populated and there was the lurking presence of "Number Two" to contend with. Persons Unknown feels very limp, and the characters just aren't compelling, individually or as part of a group. Still, "Exit One" threw up a few welcome developments...

This week, a taxi driven by an Arab (Marshall Manesh) pulled into town and offered Janet (Daisy Betts) a ride with one companion. Joe (Jason Wiles) accepted the risk to accompany her, and they were both driven out of town, before the taxi blew a tire and the driver was killed while changing it after a truck smashed into his cab. This left Joe and Janet alone in the countryside, trying to find help on foot, taking refuge in a log cabin by nightfall and discovering it contained a bee's nest the next morning; a particular problem because Joe's fatally allergic to their stings.

In town, odious Bill (Sean O'Bryan) started to irritate Charlie (Alan Ruck) by insisting he bankroll a "private parks" idea if they ever escape, or risk him telling everyone he smothered his wife to death. Meanwhile, Tori (Kate Lang Johnson) started using her sexuality to escape, by dressing sexily and making a play for the Night Manager (Andy Greenfield), as additional flashbacks revealed her Ambassador father used his own daughter as a prostitute to grease his political career, and likely killed her mother.

Out of town, reporter Mark (Gerald Kyd) continued his investigation, confirming to his editor that he's Janet's ex-husband and thus more invested in his "missing mom" story than he's been letting on.

What worked this week? Well, it was nice to leave the boring town behind during Joe and Janet's road trip, even if the sequence with the bees had been bluntly signposted earlier in the episode. Whenever a character casually reveals he's allergic to bees, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to guess what's going to be happening within the hour. I also appreciated the Bill/Charlie conflict, because they're the only characters with some personality to them right now.

Socialite Tori got some semblance of character development, but seeing her get released from captivity in a taxi felt strange. What did she do to deserve that? Just say sorry to her father via camera? Does that prove her dad's the mastermind behind all this? I hope there's more to her departure than meets the eye. Perhaps Tori has actually failed "the test" this town represents, and leaving the town actually equals failure? I wouldn't be surprised if Tori turns up dead at some point. But if she has genuinely escaped, I'm at a loss to see why she deserved to go -- beyond their captor feeling sympathetic.

It was quite a middling episode, again, but the final scene threw up a nice twist -- albeit one that wasn't entirely unexpected in a show of this nature. It turns out Joe's in cahoots with whomever's running the town, as he gained access to a secret room in the Chinese restaurant's storeroom to discuss "the process" with the waiter (Reggie Lee), who actually speaks perfect English. It seems there's definitely a good reason these people have been brought here, and it's part of an operation Joe agrees with but is having second thoughts about. A kind of harsh group therapy? Is Joe falling in love with Janet, or was he just upset he had to go through that bee scenario (if he is indeed allergic)?

Overall, "Exit One" wasn't too bad, but I still feel Persons Unknown is dragged down by some weak creative choices and a few plot-lines that just aren't working (the awful reporter in San Francisco, primarily). I'm still waiting for firmer clues, to make this show more fun to discuss and think about afterwards on a mystery level, if nothing else. My thoughts and theories haven't really changed over four weeks, so there's either going to be a series of awesome twists and reveals for mid-season, or Persons Unknown is going to eventually conclude roughly how you expected it to from the start.

Asides

• This episode was written by Michael R. Perry, who used to work on Millennium and wrote one of my favourite episodes, "The Mikado". An episode of '90s TV ahead of its time, about a serial-killer (attire based on The Zodiac Killer) who slaughtered people live on the internet if his website's hit-counter reached a certain number. A great hour of TV, worth checking out if you ever notice it being repeated somewhere.
• Of course that waiter was more than meets the eye, because I would have been a tragic waste of Reggie Lee otherwise.

WRITER: Michael R. Perry
DIRECTOR: Leon Ichaso
GUEST CAST: Marshall Manesh, Reggie Lee, Andy Greenfield & Gerald Kyd
TRANSMISSION: 28 JUNE 2010 - NBC, 8|9c