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Dr. Ellen Sanders and her family are held captive in their home by Carlisle, a desperate man doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, who orders her to assassinate the President when she operates on him. In this high-stakes standoff between Ellen and Carlisle, fraught with tremendous national and personal consequences, the choices between right and wrong become even more blurred.
Every season there's at least one high-concept show that seems like it would make a better movie than a TV series. These shows often start promisingly, but quickly devolve into wheel-spinning messes ("The Event", "FlashForward"). "Hostages" is 2013's edition of that unending parade of overly-ambitious television. While it's not impossible that the show could turn into an exciting, long-lasting, high-quality series, the odds are certainly stacked against it.
So what does "Hostages" have going for it? Mainly, the strength of its cast. Toni Collette is a superb actress, famous for roles in indie films like "The Way, Way Back" and "Little Miss Sunshine", as well as starring in "The United States Of Tara", a show about a mother with multiple personalities. She is always interesting to watch, and has a believable strength that makes her a compelling actress to put in the middle of a crisis. Dylan McDermott ("The Practice") is hot off a couple of seasons on "American Horror Story", where he first played a sex-addicted father and then a deranged maniac. Here, he gets another morally complex role as the man taking Ellen's family hostage. Add in Tate Donovan ("Damages") and Sandrine Holt ("House Of Cards") and you've got an impressive group of actors. But they can only do so much to elevate the disappointingly clichéd material they've been given.
One show that managed to sustain an apparently cinematic premise over the course of several seasons was "Lost". The writers of "Lost" managed to keep their show interesting for six years by making it as much about the characters as the mysteries. Unfortunately, the writers of "Hostages" don't have that luxury, since they made all of their characters one-dimensional cardboard cutouts. They apparently don't have enough confidence in their own material to think the premise alone is able to sustain the narrative -- instead, they gave each family member a super dark secret, so when they run out of things to do in the assassination plot, they can waste time by focusing on the family's secrets. It doesn't help that they gave each family member literally the most clichéd secret possible. The father's having an affair. The daughter's pregnant. The son is a drug dealer. How original.
Even the best political thriller series have occasionally gotten sidetracked into absurd subplots centered around children (Kim and the cougar in Season 2 of "24"; Dana and the hit-and-run in Season 2 of "Homeland"). But "Hostages" is far from the best, and it wastes no time getting sidetracked. All the secrets are revealed to the audience in the first half-hour, meaning the only suspense is in waiting for the mom to find out. But watching a character be clueless doesn't make for particularly dramatic television. How did Ellen not notice all the pregnancy tests in her daughter's bathroom? How does she not know her son is dealing drugs? Instead of supplying dramatic tension, these secrets just make Ellen seem like an inattentive mother.
Ultimately, if the writers don't have any confidence in their own material, then why should the viewers? We tuned in to "Hostages" to watch a thriller about a woman who has to decide whether or not to kill the President of the United States. Instead we were treated to a mediocre drama about a family of walking plot devices. It's probably best not to get too attached to this one, because if the writers don't refocus on what drew viewers to their show in the first place, it will inevitably receive a quick and merciful death.
Did "Hostages" take you captive? Let us know by tweeting us @StageBuddy!
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8thzMN2jj6c[/youtube]
