Wayward Pines wears its influences on it sleeve from the very first scene of the pilot, which screened at WonderCon today. If the bar for enigmatic, serialized TV mystery drama is set at Lost, why not announce your intention to emulate it by also starting with a bloodied and confused white guy in a suit waking up in the woods?
That white guy is Matt Dillon and he’s only the tip of the iceberg of heavy hitters in the cast.That roster, which includes Melissa Leo and Toby Jones, among others, goes a long way to papering over some of the tired cliches. (“What do you mean, the woman who was working last night? There’s no woman who works here. ” – not a direct quote but you get the point.) Leo in particular, who is delightfully menacing even when she’s pretending not to be, is a treat.
Ultimately, the pilot,competently directed by M. Night Shyamalan, sets up enough mysteries to warrant tuning in for a second installment. And the folks on the panel promise answers early and often in the ten episode series. But the show will have to establish deeper character back stories and individual desires to come anywhere near being mentioned alongside Lost.
