'The Passage' is a blood-sucking disappointment - East Idaho News
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‘The Passage’ is a blood-sucking disappointment

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A virus is turning humans into blood-sucking “virals,” and the only man who can protect the little girl who may be the key to stopping the disease is Zack Morris from “Saved by the Bell.”

That sounds like an intriguing premise for a television series, full of potential for action and drama. Unfortunately, “The Passage” fails to realize all this potential, settling instead for being a mildly interesting outbreak yarn with a few spicy scenes.

Based on a trilogy of novels by Justin Cronin, “The Passage” follows federal agent Brad Wolgast (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) as he tries to protect Amy Bellafonte (Saniyya Sidney) from a shadowy government agency that needs her for an experiment. In an effort to stop a globe-sweeping virus that transforms people into vampire-like monsters, said agency has set up a secret lab where it has intentionally infected several individuals with the virus, and they think Amy may be the key to finding a cure.

Of course, everything is not what it seems. The government is using the lab to pursue its own secret motives. On top of that, Dr. Tim Fanning (Jamie McShane), the lab’s first subject, has developed powerful psychic abilities and is planning something big with the rest of the lab’s patients. As Wolgast schemes to break Amy out, the pressure builds as Fanning makes moves to bring his plan to completion.

From a story perspective, the pieces are there for “The Passage” to be quite the thrill ride. But some issues keep it from soaring. It’s not that the show does anything poorly or incompetently — it just doesn’t do anything that makes it stand out.

Let’s start with the cast. Gosselaar’s performance is pretty flat. The character he’s playing is a stoic hero type, and he never does anything that wanders too far away from that framework, but he’s not that interesting either. That’s also the case for most of the rest of the cast. They don’t do anything that destroys the suspension of disbelief, but they also don’t do much to compel you to watch. You need characters you can really buy into to be interested in a story, and the actors here do little to convince you to do that.

There are two exceptions. Sidney is authentic while being likable and relatable. She avoids the traps so many other child actors fall into — not being irritatingly cute or whiny while also not feeling robotic in her performance. It’s easy to care about her.

McKinley Belcher III is the other standout in the cast. His character, Anthony Carter, is a tragic figure. Belcher plays him as a broken, tortured soul who’s given up on redemption. His emotional arc over the first five episodes is easily the most satisfying, as he gets to play heartbreak and pain as well of stoicism. It works.

What doesn’t work is the writing, which seems to be whatever is needed to push the plot forward and little else. The characterization is flat and uninteresting, with the characters more like pieces on a chess board, there to serve a purpose.

There’s also not been a lot of stuff that illuminates any themes the show may have. The characters talk about what’s going on, but not how they feel about it, or what it might mean. We get some well-worn commentary on how evil the powerful are and how they exploit the weak, but it’s nothing we’ve seen done better in other shows or movies. “The Passage” has little depth, little thematic meat to chew on.

“The Passage” also lacks anything that stands out visually. Think about similar series like “The Walking Dead” or “The Strain” and numerous memorable images quickly come to mind. “The Passage”? Not so much.

The bottom line: I gave “The Passage” five full episodes to hook me, and it couldn’t do it. I’m not willing to put any more time into this show. I haven’t read the books, so I can’t tell you how the show compares. What I can say is that while “The Passage” never does anything incompetent or egregiously bad, but it never feels special either.

You can catch “The Passage” Monday nights on FOX. You can also stream episodes on Hulu and FOX.com.

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