Held hostage by a quality show

Jessica Collins and Kim Raver get help in "The Nine" (ABC Photo)

BY VERNE GAY | Newsday Staff Writer

October 4, 2006

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Here, specifically, is what "Lost" has wrought: schedules sagging under the weight of serial dramas filled with characters thrown together by fate (or the gods of prime time) who must unravel the mysteries of the strange, capricious universe they find themselves stranded in. We did say "sagging," right?

To be sure, some of these serials are very good (NBC's "Kidnapped"). Some are very much DOA (Fox's "Vanished"). But they all are burdened by the same big problem. Just how many strange, capricious universes can we take? By structure alone, these serials also embrace a sort of cockeyed optimism, predicated on the fond hope they will go on forever or at least a few seasons. So, good luck, brother (as "Lost's" Desmond might say), on getting satisfactory answers to any mystery in their early rounds.

"The Nine" may well be the best of the crop - smart, clever and especially wise to the ways of this genre - but the challenge remains the same. This is work - admittedly often pleasurable work, but come 10 p.m. next Wednesday, we've got to do it all over again.

"The Nine" refers to nine average people. They are strangers for the most part and forever bonded after the commission of an act as basic as taking a stroll. They're in a bank lobby at exactly the same moment - the moment that will change everything. (A couple of them, in fact, actually work there, and another helps cause the horror and chaos to come, but in the universe of "The Nine" that's an immaterial detail; their fate is shared.)

It all begins on a more or less average day in Los Angeles - sunny, pleasant - and in the more or less average lobby of one of those vast impersonal banks that are as familiar as a McDonald's - lots of glass, and sheen, and the hushed buzz of any workplace.

Then: The robbers burst in, and while one pistol-whips the security guard, the other calmly says, "This'll all be over in five minutes...." That's an intended homage to "Dog Day Afternoon" - the line Al Pacino's character used at the outset of a spectacularly botched robbery - and it's also a hint of the heist's outcome. Indeed, this is all over almost as soon as it's begun, at least from the viewer's perspective.

Next scene: Nighttime, rain falling, and an army of cops and SWAT teams converge on the besieged bank lobby. After they blow their way in, one of the nine jumps on the raised arm of a bandit who's ready to fire on cops pouring into the lobby. The camera whirls through the darkness, panning onto the others - each in great distress or near death, but also at the end of a long ordeal in which each played some role, large or small.

Viewers, in fact, have come in at the end of a terrible hostage standoff that had taken place over 52 hours. But what happened during those 52 hours? There, in one little question, you have an entire season, or at least the promise of one.

This sounds complicated, but believe it or not, that's the easy part. What makes "The Nine" so compelling is everything else: The small acts - glances, chats, and (in one instance) a stolen kiss - that occur among the nine long after their ordeal is over. All is informed, shaped, and driven by what happened over those 52 hours, which will be reconstructed in a series of flashbacks.

The casting department of "The Nine" did a good job: Some of the actors are well known, and most carry off the conceit expertly. Scott Wolf ("Party of Five," "Everwood") - looking just a little older and wiser here - is a big-time surgeon; he's in the bank with his girlfriend, a hospital social worker (Jessica Collins). Tim Daly ("Wings") plays a hot-tempered cop with a gambling past; Kim Raver ("24") is a district attorney, while Chi McBride ("Boston Public") is the sweet, dough-faced bank manager. Some of you might recognize Owain Yeoman - the talented British actor in last year's criminally short-lived "Kitchen Confidential" - as bad guy Lucas Dalton here. Does "The Nine" deserve a full season? Based on the pilot, yes. Now, it's all up to you.

THE NINE. Yes - sigh - another serial that'll require a lot of time, attention and patience on your part. But if the pilot's any indication, this could be time well spent. With Scott Wolf, Tim Daly and Kim Raver. Premieres tonight at 10 on ABC/7.

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