When I heard that David S. Goyer...
When I heard that
David S. Goyer was an executive producer of this
CSI -The X-Files hybrid, I was pretty juiced. Although best known for
Batman Begins and the
Blade franchise, Goyer won my heart and mind by reviving (with
James Robinson and the ubiquitous
Geoff Johns) comics' first and greatest superteam, the almighty Justice Society (or JSA). As far as I'm concerned, anybody who can restore '40s titans like the Golden Age Green Lantern, Flash and Wildcat into 21st-century butt-kickers is definitely a marvel. Molly Anne Caffrey (
Carla Gugino) could have used the help of all three superheroes to find a military-school cadet determined to spread the alien sonic virus. Gugino handles the team with a cool, human authority, and has the most sensual lips this side of
Kelly LeBrock. There was a chilling
Children of the Corn aspect to Molly's collision with those boys in the library, who cut her off with the creepy precision of British redcoats. (Good thing Molly turned on the indoor sprinklers — dampness becomes her.) Nice to see
Brent Spiner as the team's prickly physician, Nigel Fenway, though he'll no doubt be haunted by the ghost of Data until his dying day. (Hey, as typecasting goes, it beats Gilligan, or a Brady.) Too bad the Mexican standoff in the school's tunnels at the climax was right out of
Taps. Back at HQ,
Charles S. Dutton's Blaylock was righteously flaunting due process. His interrogation of the pilot was completely uncontaminated by Miranda but, as we all know, this is a paranoid new world. Like
Atlantis' Lieutenant Ford, Blaylock is great liar — the story he gave the infected cadet's father (that the boy died trying to save others from a fire) was delivered with such gravity you wanted to believe it, even though you knew it was BS. In fact, I thought Molly had killed the kid — until they met face-to-face in a brick holding chamber that looked like Hannibal Lecter's cell.
Threshold has the elements of a sleeper, but it already suffers from the glut of
CSI-type series, of which there are already far too many on the Eye.
