Now that I’ve returned from my writing hiatus, I want to tackle the topic of the Persons Unknown finale. I realize that it’s been a couple of weeks, but the show’s ending was too controversial to not at least mention on here.
Despite NBC being very upfront about the fact that Persons Unknown was going to be only 13 episodes long, they didn’t really know how to handle it. After a couple weeks of not-so-stellar ratings, the network bumped the show to a Saturday time slot. This move, obviously, did not help the show. So despite just letting the 13 weeks run its course and then be done with it all, NBC felt that it needed that Saturday night time slot freed up a week earlier. This meant that episode 11 was pushed to an “online only” release and was never aired. I feel bad for those people who really got into the show but didn’t have access to the internet to watch that episode.
The final episode was actually really good. I liked the “unfinished” ending a lot, even though it left more questions than answers. I will say that I thought the whole plot with Mark and Kat was completely unbelievable to me for the entire series. It was all just so implausible and not given a solid foundation. The people trapped in the town were much more convincing because we were slowly introduced to background information on them that helped build the characters. I believed the Janet/Joe love scenario and really liked it, but when everyone and their mother started falling for Janet, it really started to lose me. Removing any love story from the situation, I loved the very Ocean’s Eleven-style escape they made from the town. The ensuing sequence of events to the final scene were a bit tough because they were so rushed. The show would’ve benefited from another episode to show how the group split up and got to varying places around the world. I mean one second they’re all together in the van, and the next Moira and Erika are in Morocco? That’s a bit of a leap. But it was worth it to bear with the compressed writing to get to the end plot twist. I love good plot twists and this was definitely one of my favorites in recent memory. It was clear from a mile away that one was coming, but I was not quite expecting it to turn out quite as it did with the boat and everything. Well done.
What the finale proved, however, was that the show was clearly meant to be a more than just 13 episodes and NBC was spinning it as a “mini-series” so they could pull the plug on it easier. Also, their tagline of “By the end of summer, all your questions will be answered” was a blatant lie. First this, and then they lied about the Heroes movie too. Shame on you NBC, you are doing a really good job of losing what little respect I had left for you.