This show could have been so much more.
Every now and then, the big four networks like to play around with high concept sci-fi dramas, but they always seem to get mixed results. For every Fringe, there appears to be four or five shows like The Crossing that never seem to go anywhere. Naturally, NBC tried their hand again with Manifest, a melodramatic mystery with a supernatural twist.
The show works about as well as a Ford Pinto.
The Show Is Carried By Josh Dallas And Melissa Roxburgh.
Josh Dallas deserves better.
One of Manifest‘s biggest flaws is in the acting department. The show is trying to be an ensemble piece, but it’d collapse like a house of cards without Josh Dallas and Melissa Roxburgh. The pair bring a reasonable amount of depth to the characters of Ben and Michaela Stone, but they can only do so much with the material that they’ve been given. To give you an example of what I mean, consider their interactions with the other characters.
Of the two, Josh Dallas is the superior actor. The Once Upon A Time veteran is perfectly likable, but the shoddy writing undermines him in certain areas. On one hand, Ben is understandably worried about sci-fi happenings and wants to protect his kids. However, he can’t rise above passivity because of the way that the plot is structured.
Michaela Stone’s character arc has many of the same problems, but it’s punctuated by a few bad acting moments and a love triangle. Over the course of the show, she has to deal with her latent feelings for her ex (and colleague) Jared Vasquez (J.R. Ramirez), but the show isn’t up to the challenge. The two act completely frigid and distant every time they’re on screen, culminating in a crying scene in Episode 9 that made my sides go into orbit.
Yikes!
The Plot May Go Somewhere. Eventually.
Michaela’s police segments are okay. The trouble comes at home.
Manifest may be a mystery show, but it apparently wants to be Lost with a lot of unnecessary melodrama instead of an epic masterpiece like Fringe.
You might think that the comparison is unfair, but hear me out!
The show begins with a killer premise. The Stone family is on vacation in Jamaica, but they’re split up because of and overbooked flight. Ben, Michaela, and Cal Stone (Jack Messina) take Montego Bay 828, but they soon discover that they’ve been gone for five and a half years.
So, what have we learned since the inciting incident?
Apparently, the NSA has expanded beyond its SIGINT mandate, all of the passengers are developing telepathic abilities, and an evil government/corporate alliance wants to experiment on them. That’s pretty much it, and it’s the fundamental flaw that will probably kill this show.
Fringe is representative of the opposite approach. Sure, it has some absurd moments and filler episodes, but the near-constant development of the mythology leaves the impression that the show is building to something important. Sure enough, the first season ends with a twist that opens up the world, answers some questions, and opens up a bunch of new ones.
None of those indicators are present in Manifest.
Conclusion.
Oh, yeah. Director Vance and Dr. Clarke are here to play the skeptic and believer. Whatever.
Manifest is not worth your time. It may seem intriguing at first glance, but there are far too many noticeable flaws that bring it down. The acting doesn’t sell the show, the mythology is an underdeveloped mess, and it’s poisoned by melodrama.
Give something else a shot!
We tried to like it. The premise is intriguing and they hook you right away. The rest is a soccer mom, suburban cliche-fest. “Wrap my head around”, “Hey, it’s ok to be angers, I get angry too”, “Are you ok”, “You need to calm down”, etc. The writers seriously could have been an 8th grade drama class, Within a few episodes, it becomes a Hallmark Channel sappy family scenario of repairing relationships with obvious cliches and one-liners. They occasionally tie back to time travel and original intrigue, but only to drift back to “Grace” vomiting up another chorus of pedestrian and over dramatic lines.