'The Intruders': An Underwhelming 'X-Files' Wannabe

The Intruders is a series from the novel by Michael Marshall Smith developed by Glen Morgan, who was involved with The X-Files as a consulting producer and co-executive producer. I mention this because Morgan’s experience on The X-Files is certainly obvious in The Intruders. Unfortunately, the new show doesn’t manage to elevate itself to the former’s quality.

There is atmosphere thanks to the Seattle setting, familiar actors portraying familiar roles and an oblique and mysterious story that often utilizes cryptic dialogue and conspiracy theorists that are truly paranoid but evidently always right. This is analogous to The X-Files to the point where the cold open and much of the first act play out like a forgotten episode of the sci-fi series. Unlike The X-Files, The Intruders loses us in the details because so little context is given. The vagaries are too vague, but, thanks to the Internet and The Intruders’ Wikipedia page, we learn the basics are these: there are entities that have achieved immortality by jumping from body to body, sometimes lying in wait and other times taking over the person’s body as an intruder (Hey! That’s the title of the show!). They’re malevolent beings that have some sort of connection to assassins played by James Frain and Robert Forster. They visit people that will be (or have been) intruded upon and either kill them or give them little ciphers that mean something important.

In the middle of this is Jack Whalen (John Simm), a former LAPD officer who left due to an unrevealed malfeasance and is now in Seattle with his wife Amy (Mira Sorvino) where he is attempting to write the Great American Novel. He meets with an old cop/lawyer friend Gary Fischer (Tory Kittles) who is attempting to crack the Intruders case; Amy goes missing. Simm is a decent enough of a lead, though the dialogue he’s asked to speak and his reactions to events are often puzzling or ridiculous. He’s either somewhat nervous or not worried at all about his missing wife. When he thinks he sees her after a several days’ disappearance he’s totally calm and apparently has no difficulty sleeping. Stranger still, he at no point thinks to call the police or even ask Gary (who has better connections) for help. Jack’s decision making process isn’t an organic one, but it’s necessary to move the plot along and further deepen the mystery. While his partnership with the taxi driver is a fun one, and his investigation as it is happens to be taut, one can’t help but notice that most cab companies have videos cameras in their cars these days. This fact would have rendered the action useless so, yeah, back to plot shoehorning.

The dialogue moves between cryptic and tedious. Madison (Millie Brown), a nine-year-old girl has the soul of Marcus in her body, angrily threatens “What goes around comes around” and “You’re not sorry, but you will be.” The lines are meant to be indicative of the cyclical mythology Morgan is building — life, death and life again — but the lines are so old and clichéd and delivered with such overzealousness that it overrides any inferred deeper meaning and ends up only making the audience wince. Though, I will admit, hearing children swear is always funny.

The problem is that the germ of the story is a good one. The mystery is engaging and the actors are decent — Frain in particular plays Richard Shepherd as a muted, terrifying sadist and the story pops when he’s on screen. The problem is that the give and take doesn’t quite match up. There are no small payoffs in the first two episodes I screened, no explanation or examination of what has been going on. This isn’t the sour grapes of an impatient viewer, but the observation of someone who has seen enough serialized programing to know when a show hasn’t figured itself out yet, or when it’s being lazy, stalling or padding its scripts.

Invariably, the first two episodes are just enough to entice further viewing, though it’s likely going to continue to be a frustrating show full of bad decision making, forced plotting and placeholder dialogue.