Manifest

The one current network show I watch is NBC's "Manifest," a mixture of science fiction, police procedural and soap opera.  An airplane runs into some turbulence and when it lands it is five years later (the flight took three hours).  The show for a while was about a government conspiracy to kidnap and interrogate the passengers, then turned into a show about some of the passengers "seeing" the future and recently has brought in non-passengers who disappeared for periods of time, have miraculously survived and also have "callings," seeing the future.  One thing I like about the show is its unpredictability; too often I see a network show, like it and turn it on again only to find the plot exactly the same.  Perhaps most network TV watchers want that kind of predictability.

The various plot strands are woven carefully together by creator Jeff Rake and executive producer Robert Zemeckis (who directed the Back to the Future movies).  Josh Dallas plays Ben Stone, who returns from missing five years to find his wife with another man; his young son Cal, who was with him on the plane, has stayed the same age while Cal's twin sister Olive has aged five years.  Stone leads the inquiry to find out what has happened, as well is what is happening:  some of the plane passengers have died under mysterious circumstances. Next week is the final episode of the season and we'll see if the various plot elements continue to come together or further unravel.