KEY POINTS:
The biggest mystery about new American thriller Traveler is why TVNZ is screening it on TV2 (Wednesdays, 8.30pm), to clash with its classy whodunit Damages on TV One. Is that supposed to disguise the scarcity of compelling drama and make us feel spoiled for choice?
Traveler isn't in
the same league as the Glenn Close-helmed legal thriller, but last night's pilot episode was promising enough, despite the kind of jittery, non-stop action that makes you suspect someone forgot to take their Ritalin.
The endless turbo-powered music also made it seem a bit try-hard. And the leads were moving so fast their characters were but a blur. You were still trying to distinguish between the three young men at the heart of this thriller by the end of the episode.
But when things slowed down enough to actually allow focus, Traveler looked like a show that could become an exciting watch, set firmly in the paranoid tradition beloved by US drama-makers post-9/11.
Three student friends intend to celebrate their graduation by taking a road trip across America before they settle down into working life. But first they pull a prank to get things off on the right rebellious foot. Jay and Tyler rollerblade through a New York art museum while their friend, Will Traveler, catches the escapade on video.
When the rollerbladers emerge, there is no sign of Will. Next minute he's on the phone apologising to them and the museum explodes in flames.
Before you can say Guantanamo Bay, the pair realise they could be in the frame for a terrorist act and it looks like Will has set them up.
They figure it's better to be on the run to try to find the friend who framed them rather than trying to protest their innocence to the authorities. Oh, the irony. Not quite the road trip they had bargained for.
Cue a Hitchcock-The Fugitive-24-style plot as the pair try to make their way out of a blockaded Manhattan and realise this thing is way bigger than both of them.
There are many subplots: Is Will dead? Who is the hotel concierge and why does he help them? What have their fathers' connections to the Iran-Contra scandal and the Iraq War got to do with it?
The non-stop action serves a purpose, leaving little time to think about the many implausibilities. For starters, three middle-class white students aren't much of a profile match for enemies of the state.
Why were the rollerbladers caught on the museum security cameras and Will wasn't?
After just one episode, it looks like Traveler could go either way.
The wheels-within-wheels-within-wheels conspiracy might be intriguing enough to turn this suspenser into a must-watch.
Or, if it doesn't stop awhile for some much-needed character and plot development, all those wheels just might come tumbling off.