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| SpoilerTV |
If you thought that remakes were just limited to the big screen, then you would be mistaken my friends. The wonderful House of Cards is a remake of a British show, as is The Office, while The Returned was Carlton Cuse’s rendition of the French Les Revenants and USA’s Shooter is a remake of… Shooter. However, none of these had me as intrigued as Eyewitness, a remake of a Norwegian show called Øyevitne. Promising to be a combination of a coming of age story and a murder mystery, I was excited to give it a shot. Did it hit those high marks? Let’s find out.
Eyewitness begins with just another day in the life of small-town sheriff Helen Torrence (Julianne Nicholson), as she and her partner Tony (Matt Murray) perform menial tasks around town and tend to the needs of the community. Helen’s got it all: a nice farm, loving husband Gabe (Gil Bellows), and a stable job. However, the former Buffalo detective is suffocating in this sleepy town, and when the unexpected happens she jumps at the chance for action. A triple homicide occurs in a nearby cabin, with no clue as to who the killer is or what the motive could be for such a crime, as well as an unexpected amount of federal interference. Unbeknownst to Helen, there were two eyewitnesses to the crime: her foster son Philip Shea (Tyler Young) and young motocross hopeful Lukas Waldenbeck (James Paxton), who went to the cabin to be together. Afraid of revealing their relationship and facing the consequences that would bring, the two boys keep everything that happened a secret, unaware that the killer is still out there hunting for them.
I’m going to start out here with the obvious criticism before I move into the numerous positives, because I think this explains all of the problems I have with the show. Øyevitne was six episodes while Eyewitness is ten, and while that doesn’t seem like a big gap it adds four extra hours to fill with content. Unfortunately, that content often doesn’t feel very compelling compared to the three major plotlines that run through the entire series. The show makes the decision to reveal the killer right at the beginning, and one of the early twists is that he is the head of an FBI unit leading a drug investigation. Because of this, Ryan Kane (Warren Christie) and Helen have a lot of interactions and we get to see Ryan manipulate the case to throw her off his trail. This is a fascinating idea, but the show treats these distractions as red herrings, and while Helen follows these little diversions we already know that they won’t lead her anywhere. A red herring only works in a detective story if we don’t know who the killer is, and by knowing that it’s Ryan it only serves to drag the story down a lot of the time.
Let me give you an example without getting into too many spoilers. One of the plot threads follows Kamillah Davis (Tattiawna Jones), an FBI agent under Ryan’s command, and her criminal sister Sita (Amanda Brugel), who is connected to the drug ring Kamillah is targeting. Sita and her child seem to play a big part of this story, constantly getting involved in the investigation and forcing Kamillah to make some tough choices. However, at the end of the day this plotline doesn’t really go anywhere and only serves to make things more difficult for Helen later on down the line. In essence, it feels like wasted time in my opinion, even though I think the actors did a great job with what they were given. I just wish it actually mattered to the overall story instead of being one long insignificant subplot, and that's far from the only one.
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| USA Network
Leaving less room for Tony jokes, which is just a travesty.
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Another thing that I didn’t personally like was the muted color palette that the show employs. I get that this little town is close to the Northeast, but everything is so damp and grey that I was starting to feel an overwhelming sense of dread even when there was supposed to be a touching moment or a humorous tension-breaking line. Part of this is more than likely the handiwork of Catherine Hardwicke (the director of Twilight), who directed the first two episodes and set up how she wanted the show to look. This is definitely just a personal problem and not one that I would recommend turning the show off for, I’m just not a fan of that visual style.
For everything that I said didn’t work, I actually really enjoyed the overall experience. I think all the characters, whether their plotlines were essential or not, were really well-developed and well-written, to the point where they mostly felt like real people. Helen’s journey to solve the case, while a little longer than I would have liked, is engaging to watch because she is a really interesting character. While it would be so easy to just have her be the stereotypical strong female character, Helen is a very complicated person, with her great intelligence and instincts as a police officer coming at the cost of time with her growing family. She always smiles and acts natural around her husband but retreats emotionally whenever Philip appears, making us wonder what’s going on with her and why she would even want to adopt if she’s going to act that way. Her own obsessions and character flaws at times even make the audience not like her, but Julianne Nicholson is such a great (and vastly underrated) actress that she sells it effortlessly.
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| USA Network
My fingernails were a lot longer before I saw this scene.
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Something that actually impressed me was how this show handled the villain, Ryan, and his character arc throughout the show. Having it stretched out for as much as it is leaves him hanging every now and then, but I like that he's not actually evil and is conflicted by what he's doing. His arc was one that reminded me of when I read Interview With a Vampire, though, in that I was kind of confused and a bit frustrated with it until I saw how it all played out in the end. The last three episodes, like the last few pages in that book, made everything click and started to hit me emotionally. I'm not sure if the original show has this kind of depth to its villain, but by the end of this series I felt really bad for Ryan despite everything he'd done.
The best thing about this show for me is the relationship between Philip and Lukas, hands down. All of the tension I felt from the show came from watching them try to grapple with their feelings while the world around them goes to hell, but at the same time it's also the heart and soul that a show like this needs to keep people invested. I really liked these characters and wanted them to get together by the end of it, and even though some of the obstacles might seem cliche at times I still cared because of the unique circumstance that this relationship was developing in. The two leads are what sell this romance the most to me, especially Tyler Young. He was great from scene 1, but I found myself really latching onto James Paxton by about the middle of the second episode. At first he seems a little rough around the edges but still good, but I thought at that point he hit his stride and kept up with his co-star the rest of the way.
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| USA Network
It's hard to fall in love when there's a murderer after you!
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Adi Hasak is the man behind this show, and the writer of most of the scripts, so I feel like he deserves a lot of the credit for what really works here. The characters, whether they're important to the endgame or not, are all pretty well-written and avoid the standard stereotypes you find in most shows like this (especially Philip and Lukas). The three main plotlines (Philip and Lukas, Helen's investigation, and Ryan's cover-ups) are all compelling and exciting to watch, and are a welcome break from the glut of procedurals we still get in SVU and NCIS and the like. Despite my problems I was very impressed with this show, and just because it doesn't hit the highest bar doesn't mean it's not good television, and at ten episodes it's very easy to plow through.
Eyewitness is a show that, following the rule of remakes, just shouldn't work, and some things about it don't. Some people might be frustrated by the slow pace and the multiple red herrings, but I think the scripts, characters, and performances more than make up for those issues. It's a good self-contained story, and as much as I love #philkas I hope this is the end of this particular story because the ending is perfect. If you want a good crime show but you want something with more heart and genuine thrills, this is the perfect show for you. I definitely recommend it.
My Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Eyewitness is available to watch on the USA Network.
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