“Pilot” – Aired on Sept 24, 2018
Written by: Jeff Rake
Directed by: David Frankel
Grade: 4 out of 5
Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers
I am not a big fan of monologues in TV series, especially ones designed to hold viewers by the hand, so to speak. There are rare cases where one serves as a necessary ingredient to the effectiveness of the show’s core drama – such is the case with You (Lifetime), where the thoughts of the main character get transmitted to the audience via monologues by the character himself, and they act as the driving force behind the central narrative, with the intent to intensify the viewer’s emotional response. Otherwise, monologues are convenient tools, far too often used by showrunners to bypass the challenge of visually conveying the story to the audience. So, you can understand my sense of apprehension when literally one second into Manifest’s nascence, a monologue took over the sound system of my TV.
Like a dull brochure that introduces you to the people whose presentations you are about to watch at a conference, the beginning monologue flatly presents the members of the Stone family to the audience, with some background information about each one. It even tells us which members take which flight, although their conversations clearly relay those particulars to anyone watching. It also informs us that the young boy has leukemia, although we would have easily figured that out within the first 15 minutes, had the monologue not said a word. Dear writers, please, oh please, avoid monologues of this type. Your show’s viewers are smarter than you think and they a narration to understand what they can already see and hear.
The Stones are at the airport in Montego Bay, Jamaica. They are waiting at the gate to get on the Montego Airways Flight 828 to New York. We witness a few brief but well-written dialogues, giving us a glimpse of the dynamics within the family. Michaela (Melissa Foxburgh), who was the voice behind the opening monologue, is lectured by her mom and dad about the happiness that marriage can bring to her, and they believe that a certain Jared is just the right candidate to take her to the mountain top. Michaela’s apparently not ready to get married, but mom reiterates that “even people that have made mistakes deserve happiness,” and cites a verse: “All things work together for good.” It is obvious that, to Michaela, this sounds like the fraud spiritual preceptor Pangloss who repeats “Tout est au mieux” throughout Voltaire’s Candide. Little does she know that her mother’s mantra will become a point of interest to her in the upcoming days (or five years later, depending on which person’s perspective you are considering).
Michaela’s brother Ben (Josh Dallas) and his wife Grace (Athena Karkanis) are also with them at the gate, along with their twin children Olive and Cal. The family gets split when Ben and Michaela opt for a later flight in return for monetary compensation because Flight 828 is overbooked and they could use the money for Cal’s leukemia treatments. Cal (Jack Messina) joins them and the less-than-two-minute-long airport scene, dominated by the dreadful monologue comes to an end.
The end of the monologue is not the only reason why the hour begins to improve once the flight takes off. Seasoned director David Frankel (Collateral Beauty, The Devil Wears Prada, Marley and Me) excels with his camera work in the scenes shot inside the airplane, including some brief shots of a few characters who will surely settle into recurring roles later. The head pilot, named Captain William Daly, steals the show here with a few great what-the-hell lines that the actor Frank Deal delivers with the driest tone of irony possible. The flight experiences a few seconds of severe turbulence during which lights flicker and everything shakes violently. Once it’s over, Capt. Daly informs the passengers that some “weather surge that was not on the radar” caused the disturbance, but no big deal, or so thinks Daly, who then announces that “all engine controls are back to normal.”
It is a big deal though…
During the surge, unbeknownst to the 191 “souls on board,” they moved forward in time by five and a half years. Having left Jamaica on April 7, 2013, they arrive to New York on November 4, 2018. Never mind that they were on the plane for only three hours and nineteen minutes as far as their body clocks are concerned.
Confusion and shock surround first Captain Daly who is instructed to divert the flight to some other smaller airport, then everyone else when they eventually disembark from the plane and get told by the NSA Director (Darryl Edwards), who is accompanied by FEMA agents and police force, that they have been presumed dead for five and a half years.
Just like that, in less than seven minutes, the whole premise of Manifest is laid out. I mean that as a compliment, because it leaves more time for “Pilot” to develop storylines and characters to convince the viewer to tune in again next week. There is nothing more golden than establishing a loyal fan base within the first few weeks of a show.
The episode succeeds in doing just that – developing characters and storylines – by focusing on Ben, Michaela, and Saanvi (Parveen Kaur), a third passenger we noticed earlier in the plane when her computer with “six weeks’ worth of research data” broke during the turbulence. Their stories, which cleverly merge into a larger plot later, are arguably the strongest parts of “Pilot.”
Yes, there are echoes of Lost, the 4400, Sense8 (thanks for the tip @RoseConnolly8) and FlashForward here. Yes, The Returned even had the same trope of the separated twins where one ends up years older than the other who disappeared and came back. Yes, there are other similarities to forward-time-travel shows, such as love interests of the disappeared having moved on to other love interests, recently deceased friends and family members, or advanced technology unfamiliar to the disappeared. Yes, there are even some cliché sentences like “the universe just gave all of us a do-over” uttered by Grace to Michaela.
Nevertheless, Manifest’s creator Jeff Rake, who also penned “Pilot,” and director Frankel manage to keep a fairly complex narrative flowing with remarkable lucidity, while avoiding the 11th-hour shock revelations with quick cuts and booming sounds that have become all too common in today’s high-octane-action oriented land of TV shows. Well, they do not avoid it entirely, as the episode ends on one such scene (not to mention that the unpleasant monologue also comes back). Everything in between, however, is one thoroughly enjoyable ride.
First, there is a neat montage of passengers being interrogated by agents who are just as confused by the reappearance of the plane as the passengers are of the passage of time. Furthermore, none of the “191 souls” seem to have aged. This brings forth an intriguing juxtaposition of confusion on the part of the crew and passengers, and suspicion on the part of the investigating agents that I hope the writers will further flesh out in the upcoming episodes. “Pilot” also seems to flirt with other contrasts such as religion vs. science and individuality vs. collective. These are just a few examples of how Manifest packs enough material in its first hour to lay the groundwork for a vigorous first season, assuming that the writing room plays its cards correctly.
Michaela’s background is explored next. She worked for the NYPD along with Jared (J.R. Ramirez), her husband candidate from five years ago, at least from his perspective. From Michaela’s perspective, who apparently made up her mind to marry him during the flight, it feels like he is still a current candidate. Except that he is not, much to her dismay. According to Jared, after he had lost hope of ever seeing Michaela again – it took him two years to even look at another woman, he claims – he fell in love with Lourdes, one of Michaela’s best friends, and married her. He is also promoted to detective and heads the investigation of the case on which Michaela is having premonitions. Yes, the fact that Jared is no longer available represents only a fraction of Michaela’s problems at this point.
Shortly after Flight 828 landed, she first learned that her mother died during her five-year-plus absence. Next, she is having to cope with her own voice inside her head giving her premonitions. As annoying as the voices are, they help her save a boy from being killed by a bus. Then, a larger plotline involving two dogs and two kidnapped girls, despite its predictability, syncs nicely with her character development, although Foxburgh could slightly tone it down with the number of melodramatic stares to the horizon during conversations.
Ben is in the same boat as her sister. His voice is also giving him directives. We know this because both are drawn to the same location more than once in the episode, realizing that they are not alone in their newfound ability to predict events. On the family front, Ben experiences renewed hope as the advanced discoveries in the world of medicine over the last five years seem to point to a solution that can dramatically increase Cal’s chances of long-term survival. Ben’s wife Grace, for her part, feels as if she has been given a second chance at life with her son.
Dallas and Karkanis perform well in their “couple” scenes, effectively transmitting the malaise in the air, once the happy-reunion jitters are over. Ben is not forthcoming with his premonitions and we learn that Grace is hiding something from him when a concerned Olive asks her mother in the kitchen “What are you going to do?” Grace was indeed messaging someone who was asking her “Did you tell him? I miss you.” There are conspicuous signs of a rocky road ahead for this household.
In the meantime, the scientific solution that gives Ben and Grace hope with regard to Cal’s illness happens to be – lo and behold – based on the research that Saanvi was developing when she boarded Flight 828. While she was presumed dead, her research was completed by Doctor Cardoso (Joel de la Fuente) and became an integral part of a treatment that has been saving hundreds of lives since her disappearance. Saanvi essentially comes back into existence as a bona fide hero.
She also goes through a rollercoaster ride of emotions during the hour. She expresses joy when she finds out that her research was a success, surprise when her colleagues welcome her back as a star, shock when she witnesses Cal’s treatment being denied by the doctor she thought she knew, anger when she talks to Dr. Cardoso about it later, and deep sorrow when she watches Cal in the hospital, all within a span of sequences that add up to no more than 10 minutes. And it all works because Kaur nails her role.
In fact, the hour’s most pleasant surprise, for me at least, was how well the actors carried their roles, considering that hardly any of the names in the cast enjoyed major starring roles on breakthrough TV shows (Dallas comes the closest with his role as Prince Charming in Once Upon a Time).
Manifest’s success will largely depend on quality character development, considering how many of them they must develop, and not falling into the trap of getting tangled in its own web of mysteries, à-la Lost in its later seasons. For now, though, I remain optimistic that Rake and the team of writers can deliver the goods (Robert Zemeckis is also credited as an executive producer). “Pilot” seems to have done its part as an adequate prelude to a promising trip in the land of the paranormal-mystery subgenre.
Last-minute thoughts:
– “Acting out, trying to get my attention, get back at me.” Really Jared? I can forgive you falling in love with Michaela’s friend after two years of abstinence following her disappearance, but this self-centered line you pulled? No dude.
– Michaela did pull a pretty good come-back line: “Thanks for your condolences, by the way.”
– Ok, I know I am stuck on Jared’s behavior here, but what on earth is the purpose of that “You still take my breath away” line he uttered to Michaela in a later conversation? Dude, stop!
– We learn that Michaela was in a car accident that caused the death of Evie sitting in her car. We do not know yet who Evie is, but we do know now that Michaela had to suffer through a trial to claim her innocence after the accident.
– Luna Blaise is great as Olive.
– “We can’t risk breaking protocol.” Are you kidding me Dr. Cardoso? That is the best explanation you can provide to your colleagues for denying Cal treatment? Come on…
– For how glad they were to see the kidnapper when Jared brings them back to him, those two beautiful German Shepherds ran away rather quickly when Michaela initially released them.
Until the next episode…