Here's your dilemma. And the networks'.
It's April and your daily TV routine is pretty much set. You have your nightly favorites. You have a DVR. You have On Demand, the occasional pay-per-view movie and (maybe, just maybe) some evenings you turn off the TV and read a book.
Yeah. I'm sorry. What was I thinking?
Then NBC comes along and tosses in a new mystery-thriller and hopes it resonates with enough viewers to justify the enormous expense it takes to put on an hour drama these days.
You may have seen a commercial for Game of Silence, but was that enough to gain your interest? Mystery-thrillers are a dime a baker's dozen, so why bother with this one?
You can find out exactly why when the series debuts at 9 p.m. today after The Voice. NBC is hoping to get The Voice leftovers and gambling they remember the series switches to its regular time at 9 p.m. Thursday after The Blacklist.
Networks do that a lot these days -- pairing a new show with an established show and running commercials during the hit series to entice viewers to stick around.
I was a bit skeptical when I got my preview copy of Game of Silence. The plot, touted as "a gripping new drama about friendship, love, revenge and the moral dilemma of how far one will go in the pursuit of justice," seemed familiar.
In addition, although the cast is a solid group of semi-familiar faces, there are no household names of must-see actors on the list.
Then I found out just how powerful they were together. Kudos to the casting director on this one.
The show's pedigree is also impressive. From the executive producers of CSI and Friday Night Lights, the series is adapted from the Turkish series Suskunlar. Turkish? That's something you don't see every day.
My curiosity was piqued and so should yours be. Here's the background according to NBC press materials.
Heading the ensemble is David Lyons (Revolution) as lawyer Jackson Brooks, a guy who has it all. He's engaged to his beautiful boss, Marina (Claire van der Boom, Hawaii Five-O); he has a gorgeous home; his promising career is taking off and he's on the fast track to becoming partner at his firm.
Then a dark, dark, long-buried secret comes back into his life.
Jackson's old childhood friends reappear one day to ask his help in avenging a wrong that took place 25 years before. We learn of that past in nicely revealed flashbacks.
Jackson, Gil Harris (Michael Raymond-James, Once Upon a Time), Shawn Polk (Larenz Tate, Rescue Me) and Boots (Derek Phillips, Friday Night Lights) were best buds, almost like brothers.
They spent their idyllic boyhood summers in Dalton, Texas, swimming in the quarry, shooting bottle rockets and doing everything you'd expect boys to do in small-town America.
But their world turned to chaos one summer afternoon. Bad things happen. Everything resurfaces a quarter century later and results in an act of violence that reunites the men "in a journey that will push the limits of their loyalty and ignite in them an unquenchable thirst for revenge."
Unquenchable thirst? NBC is being a bit melodramatic, but that's the gist of it. And that's why the series is rated TV-14 -- for violence and sexual situations.
The cast also includes Bre Blair (Last Vegas) as Jessie, Conor O'Farrell (The Lincoln Lawyer) as warden Roy Carrol, Deidrie Henry (Justified) as Detective Liz Winters and Demetrius Grosse (Saving Mr. Banks) as Terry Bosch.
The first season will have 10 episodes, all working toward the conclusion of the central mystery, and set the stage for a second season if enough folks tune in.
• Interest scheduled. Kindly inform your friends, all you emailing fans of Person of Interest. The CBS series is not quite dead yet, but the end is in sight.
Season 5 finally arrives at 9 p.m. May 3. The second episode will air May 9. Then there will be Monday/Tuesday episodes until all 13 episodes are gone. The series finale airs June 21.
The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Email:
mstorey@arkansasonline.com
Style on 04/12/2016