I appreciate cleverness in a movie or series, so much so that I am currently watching three engrossing and intriguing shows. I’ll be sharing reviews about all of them in upcoming days. The first review is for the new drama mystery, Manifest.
Manifest Series
Manifest stars Josh Dallas, Melissa Roxburgh, Athena Karkanis, J.R. Ramirez, Luna Blaise, Jack Messina, Parveen Kaur and Victoria Cartagena. Episodes, with a run time of 1 hour, air on NBC Mondays at 9:00 pm central time.
When Montego Flight 828 lands safely after a short but turbulent flight, everyone on board is relieved. However, passengers immediately notice that their cell phones can’t get service. And the number of emergency vehicles in attendance seems out of proportion with the rough landing.
The passengers are asked to exit the plane while on the tarmac, instead of being taxied to the terminal gate. Ben Stone (Dallas) disembarks with his sister Michaela (Roxburgh) and young son Cal (Messina). Due to an overbooked airplane earlier, the three volunteered for this later flight. Ben’s wife Grace (Karkanis), daughter Olive (Blaise) and parents left on the original flight as scheduled.
To their surprise, the passengers of Flight 828 learn that in the few hours they were in the air, five years have passed. The plane was declared missing, and its crew and passengers listed as presumed dead.
Cal’s twin sister Olive is a teenager, while he remains a child. The leukemia that threatens the boy’s life is now treatable, because medical researcher Saanvi (Kaur), who was also on the mysterious flight, sent in her findings as she boarded the plane.
As excited as people are to see their family members alive, much has changed in five years. Ben and Michaela’s mother died. Michaela’s fiancé Jared (Ramirez) married her best friend Lourdes (Cartagena). Relationships feel awkward and strained. People who mourned their supposed losses moved on and created new lives.
As the passengers of Flight 828 adjust to a time leap, they discover that they too have changed. They are more than they were previously, with heightened awareness and new abilities that trouble them. Deeper mysteries are unfolding.
What is Manifesting?
Like many who watched episode one of Manifest, I saw a strong resemblance to another series from the early 2000s, Lost. In both shows there’s an airplane involved and passengers who end up in an unusual situation. Coincidences are abundant, with numbers playing a key role in the whole Lost series and in the first episode of Manifest.
I appreciated Lost, so any similarities were fine with me. Although, I do hope for a different type of ending for this new drama, if it runs for six years. That’s a long time to invest in a series and Lost fell short in its series finale for many viewers including me.
I am intrigued by Manifest. By episode two I wasn’t thinking of Lost any longer. I was trying to think ahead of the show and grasp where the story is heading and what is happening. There are mysteries to unravel for sure. And a creepy, menacing element appeared in the second episode that unnerved me.
I like that the characters’ lives are messy and disjointed, as they would be if five years passed for some and only hours for others. Shows and films about growth, transformation and acceptance are among my favorites to watch and Manifest has caught my attention and my interest.
Episode three airs Monday, October 8 on NBC. I’ll be watching.
