“John Doe”
Tonight at 9 on Ch. 5
½
AT last – a TV show with brains.
In “John Doe,” it’s the title character who is endowed with superhuman smarts, but it’s the writers who have been handed the responsibility of maintaining this show’s keen intellect.
And in tonight’s premiere, they more than rise to the challenge. Doe is a man who wakes up one day clinging to a piece of debris in the middle of an ocean, where he is rescued by an Asian fishing boat and then deposited in Seattle with no money in his pocket nor clothes on his back.
Somewhere, somehow he lost all memory of who he is or where he came from. But in the process, he gained knowledge of literally everything else.
When asked, he can rattle off the population of Morocco, the number of dimples on a golf ball and the first line of “Macbeth.” He can simultaneously complete consecutive crossword puzzles and answer all the questions on “Jeopardy!”
In tonight’s premiere, he applies all he knows about probability and statistics to pick a string of winners at an off-track betting parlor, walking away with a small fortune.
As far-fetched as that sounds, the script by Brandon Camp and Mike Thompson makes it all seem plausible. And Dominic Purcell plays the role of Doe with just the right combination of worldly wisdom and childlike perplexity.
Before the episode is over, Doe has figured out that he can probably make a pretty tidy living as a private investigator, setting the stage for a variety of adventures in the weeks to come.
At the same time, he’s desperate to learn more about himself, about which he is almost totally clueless – so far.
“John Doe’s ” longevity depends on how effectively the writers can string out the mystery of Doe’s identity.
With tonight’s premiere, they’ve set the bar pretty high. If they can maintain that level of intelligence, then “John Doe” stands a chance of becoming the kind of special series – like “The Fugitive” and “The Prisoner” – that people will talk about for years to come.