Parents' Guide to Big Sky

It has clear ambitions to be a gripping mystery series on the order of 24 or The Blacklist, but with cliched plot twists and rote characters, this show's reach exceeds its grasp. With its first shots of little-town life in snowbound Montana, Big Sky seems to be reaching for a Twin Peaks vibe, but while that show wowed and confused viewers with its cast of memorable weirdos, Helena's everyday people are a lot more bland, and that definitely includes Ryan Philippe's generic good-guy P.I. Cody Hoyt, as well as the two women caught up in complicated feelings for him, both detective also: detective agency owner Cassie and Cody's estranged wife Jenny. In the series of novels that Big Sky is drawn from, Cass is the heroine and center of the story, but the show doesn't seem that interested in her, or in Jenny; the focus is instead on their feelings for the biggest name in the cast.

In Big Sky's marquee storyline, the center of the screen belongs to the gentlemen in the cast, too, with showrunner David E. Kelley electing to focus on by-the-book homicidal maniac trucker Ronald and his evil cohorts rather than the trio of women they kidnap. The men get moments in which they publicly pretend to be perfectly normal guys (albeit ones with quirks that would alert a herd of elephants to their oddness), and then scenes in which they leer and threaten terrible things; the women are reduced mainly to cowering and shrieking as the camera dotes on the sight. It just all feels so un-fresh, despite the gorgeous Montana setting, and lots of twists (that are telegraphed long before they arrive). Let's call it a swing and a miss.