Believe

TV Series Review

Bo is a special little girl.

Not “special” in the way that all parents feel their kids are special. Bo, after all, never really knew her parents. Not “special,” as in a child who might need extra attention in school or care at home. Bo’s never gone to a regular school, nor has she had a home outside the strange, secretive facility where she’s lived most of her life.

You see, Bo was born with the ability to manipulate objects with her brain. She can also read people’s minds. And sometimes, when Bo gets really angry, wild things happen. Bo doesn’t have much control over her powers, of course. She’s only 10. But still, the potential is there. That makes her, you might say, extra special—especially to the folks who’d like to control her.

This little girl stands at the center of NBC’s Believe—a rollicking caper that’s part Touch, part The Fugitive and often a bit … unbelievable.

What we know so far is this: Bo is on the run from Roman Skouras, a wealthy, shadowy guy who operates a boarding house/training facility/prison for “special” folks like Bo. Skouras has some connections with the government, and he seems to believe that the people at his facility might somehow be a national “resource.” He might, that is, be able to weaponize them.

But Milton Winter, who worked with Bo for years under Skouras, would rather not see his precious pupil become a psychic A-bomb. And so he spirited the little girl away and now leads an underground effort to keep Bo out of Skouras’ clutches. To accomplish that purpose he’s assigned Bo a front-line defender—a man named Tate.

Tate might not seem like the most ideal candidate, what with him being a murderer and death-row escapee and all. Convicted killers generally don’t make great babysitters for 10-year-old girls. And even if the guy’s innocent (as he claims), the fact that Winter busted Tate out of prison pretty much guarantees nonstop police interest in his whereabouts. (So much for blending in.)

But besides Tate’s inherent, um, resourcefulness, there’s another reason why Winter chose him: He’s actually Bo’s father, a bombshell fact only Winter, Zoe (Skouras’ head worker bee) and (now) the millions of us watching know.

Such is the setup for Believe.

While the show certainly has a strong pedigree ( Gravity director Alfonso Cuarón and  Lost co-creator J.J. Abrams are among its executive producers), it doesn’t yet have the gravitas you might expect. Indeed, it can feel a little soap opera-ish every now and then, only with more explosions.

Tate and Bo’s relationship is the beating heart of the adventure: Neither seem to care that much for the other at first (an obligatory trope found in almost every loving, caring relationship in entertainment). Tate finds Bo a drag on his newfound freedom. Bo scolds Tate for his law-shirking ways. But both are growing closer. And with each passing episode, Tate becomes more and more of a father—even as he’s kept in the dark regarding his blood tie to the girl.

Worldview wise, Believe flirts with pseudo-scientific spirituality—unmoored right now to any real faith. As for the show’s moral core, it’s shaping up as a showdown between good and evil, with powers in play that can be scarcely understood. Content revolves around violence. Rarely does Tate escape an episode without a swath of cuts and bruises. People are beaten, threatened and sometimes die. Language can be rough at times, too.

So I’d like to see where the show might go with Bo before it makes a believer out of me.