Evolutionary `X-Files' Wannabe
( Newsday ) Steve Parks; 01-11-1998
By Steve Parks. STAFF WRITER
Expect "The X-Files" knock-offs to keep rolling in throughout 1998.
Fox ("The Visitor," "Millenium") and NBC ("The Pretender,"
"Sleepwalkers," "Profiler") constructed evening lineups made up entirely
of dramatic series based on weird and other-worldly phenomena. Now ABC,
the Disney network, weighs in with "Prey," though with its time slot -
Thursday night at 8 opposite NBC's "must-see-TV" lead-off hitter,
"Friends" - both predator and prey in this new series from Warner
Bros. may wind up as sacrificial lambs.
But if ABC is patient - an uncharacteristic quality for networks -
"Prey" could develop into a solid hit. The show has beauty and brains
in the person of a bio-anthropoloist babe who knows just when to cry.
And it has a dark and mysterious threat in the form of a hominid bad guy
who wants to be a good guy. Can she trust him? Can we? There's even the
distinct prospect of sex between members of the opposing species.
The series premise is laid out tantalizingly in Thursday night's
premiere on Ch. 7. Never mind the scientific improbability. "Prey" is no
docudrama, we hope.
Dr. Sloan Parker, the science babe played with a convincingly
no-nonsense edge by Debra Messing ("Ned & Stacey"), is a protege of Dr.
Ann Coulter, who is murdered early in Thursday's show. When Parker finds
the body, a lab monkey is hovering over with a sign reading, "All of you
will die," around its neck. Those are the words mass murderer Randall
Lynch whispered in Coulter's ear when he charged the witness stand at
his trial.
Lynch would be the prime suspect except that he was behind bars at
the time.
Parker is haunted by the last words she heard from her mentor and
friend. Coulter told her of an anomaly in the blood work she'd conducted
on Lynch to help convict him. But, meanwhile, the files have been turned
over to an FBI agent who turns out not to be an agent. So Parker starts
over from scratch, literally. She visits Lynch in prison, face to face,
so she can scratch a speck of skin from his arm to conduct her own DNA
analysis.
Parker discovers that Lynch is not human. Even more startling, she
tests DNA samples of a half-dozen violent criminals and finds that they,
too, are members of some heretofore undetected extra-human species.
Moreover, the mystery man Parker saw hanging around Coulter, posing as
FBI agent Tom Daniels, turns out of that same new species.
How did this species evolve? According to Dr. Coulter's theory,
outlined in a lecture she gives shortly before her murder, the last time
there was a change in temperature on earth of as much as 6 degrees, Homo
Sapiens began to develop alongside Neanderthals before wiping them out.
Now with global warming, another species of man has evolved, undetected
before advanced DNA analysis was possible.
Why is this new species intent on murderously eliminating Homo
Sapiens one by one? It's the oldest reason in the world. No two species
can occupy the same evolutionary niche. A battle for the survival of the
fittest is on.
"Prey" would be too comic-book predictable if that's all there was to
it. However, from the first episode, we can see that a complicating
relationship will develop between Parker and the member of this new
species who calls himself Daniels.
Played with a dazed look of confusion and conflict by Adam Storke,
"Daniels" has doubts about his mission. (He's been sent to kill Parker.)
He's had enough contact with humans that he suspects they have more fun
than he does. They have emotions. Tears and laughter. And he wants some
of that.
Wanna bet that lovely Sloan shows him what it's all about? Helping
her on this scientific quest to prove the existence of the new species
is Coulter's successor, Dr. Walter Attwood (Larry Drake formerly of
"L.A. Law") and Sloan Parker's would-be boyfriend Dr. Ed Tate (Vincent
Ventresca). Investigating various grisly crimes along the way is cop Ray
Peterson (Frankie Faison.)
But Messing and Storke are the dual fulcrum of the series. They
establish an appropriately awkward chemistry in the first episode.
Its plot may sound preposterous, but "Prey" is worth checking out,
"Friends" or no "Friends."
Copyright 1998, Newsday Inc.
Steve Parks, Evolutionary `X-Files' Wannabe. , Newsday, 01-11-1998, pp 03.