Wayward Pines, TV series starring Matt Dillon, launching in 2015

Surprised I couldn’t find a thread on this. Blake Crouch wrote a wonderfully creepy, almost Twin Peaks like book called Pines that was well received on Qt3.

Walking down the middle of the road, he glanced up at the Wayward Pines “goodbye” sign— a family of four frozen mid-smile, mid-wave.

WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED YOUR VISIT TO WAYWARD PINES! DON’T BE A STRANGER! COME BACK SOON!

…The road simply curved back around a half mile later to deliver its hysterical punch line. That same perfect, smiling family on a billboard, greeting everyone with:

WELCOME TO WAYWARD PINES WHERE PARADISE IS HOME

“For every perfect little town, there’s something ugly underneath. No dream without the nightmare.”

The first book had a surprising amount of depth, and book #2 is (for me, 87 pages in) surprising me again. And there is a third book.

Fox picked up ten episodes and are planning to start airing them internationally some time in 2015. Matt Dillon stars and Melissa Leo, Toby Jones, Carl Cugino, Terrence Howard, Juliette Lewis, Hope Davis and Justin Kirk are also on board. M. Night Shyamalan is executive producer. Score by David Porter (Breaking Bad).

Very spoilery trailor:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmFPf7I0Jlc

I think one of the things I like most about that trailer (aside from the score!) was that the show has a sense of humor that I think is present but understated in the books.

Of course, they’ll air the episodes out of order and really mess with people’s minds until they’ve just caught on and then they’ll cancel it

I’m a sucker for these type of stories, and I go in enthusiastically, though when they unfold it’s often disappointing. However, for now I’m in!

Also, for some reason when I read “Matt Dillon” I thought “Matt Damon” and I was like “woah, Matt Damon is doing a TV show???”

I’ve read some articles where people saw footage and had a Q&A with the cast. Most responses to the show itself were poor. Not sure how much was screened though.

This is 2015, but when? Next fall?

I heard January as a mid-season replacement. Isn’t Gracepoint or something only 13 episodes (and probably canceled regardless)?

The books are pretty good, esp. the first one, and the concept could make a great TV show. That’s a heck of a cast.

Been reading the first book, 100 pages in. Not terribly impressed but I could see how the ideas I’ve seen so far would capture Shymalan’s interest. Does anyone know if the show will cover the trilogy or just the first book?

I don’t know what it will cover, but based on what I know from reading the trilogy, the show would probably suffer if it only focused on the first book.

And I agree that it’s not the best writing in the world – my positive reaction was probably influenced by knowing from the very start that the story would later be adapted for TV and imagining it through that lens and thinking about all the potential that’s there made the experience all the more exciting to me.

Good to know… if I decide to read the remaining books, I’ll try to do all three before the TV show. It seems like the first hundred pages could be easily covered in a few episodes, so it makes sense that the series would have to borrow from all three.

Almost done with the first novel and I think comparing this to Lost is more apt than Twin Peaks. It shares a similar locale to Twin Peaks, but basically nothing else. Maybe that vibe changes by the end of the first book, but 90% of the way through, Lost feels like the closest TV show comparison.

“Where am I?”

“In the village.”

“Who are you?”

“The new M. Night Shanana. You are Matt Damon.”

“Dillion.”

“Damon, Schizoid Man. You are Matt Damon.”

“At least let me drive around in a cool Lotus 7. I’ll even take a Caterham.”


Where’s the smoke mon…I mean Rover?

Well, I’m glad I’m not the first to post about this show. Saw the first episode and thought it was decent. Hell of a cast. The weird part is (well, apart from the fact that it’s a secret prison) that time seems to be subjective or something. Juliette Lewis’ character thought she’d only been there a year, whereas Carla Gugino’s thought she’d been there twelve, even though out intrepid hero had just seen her a few weeks back. I don’t know if they explain that through the miracle of “handwavium” but we’ll see.

I didn’t care for it much at all. Although the cast was surprisingly well-stocked, I was singularly unimpressed with Dillon, who just straight up acts like a crazy person, and is doing a weird Bale-batman voice for some reason. If I thought it was a kind of commentary on action hero masculinity, it might be interesting, but I don’t think this show has any pretensions to that kind of depth. Because Dillon was acting like an asshole the whole time, I was never really on his side, and it made the town seem significantly less sinister because of course people are going to be all weird and evasive with you when you’re just being a dick.

I think it’s clear that Dillon’s old partner (Gugino) didn’t actually believe that she’d been there for 12 years. Whatever backstory has been written for her by the sinister watchers ™ says that she’s been there for 12 years, and if she says anything different, she’ll be punished, somehow. She’s playing along, not brainwashed.

Juiiette Lewis’s response doesn’t really make sense though, unless she’s actually brainwashed, or if it’s part of a triple-cross, where she’s part of the indoctrination, but just pretends that she’s trying to help him escape because <something something> illusion of agency <something something> experiment.

Right now, the biggest question to me is: is this some kind of Prisoner situation, where people are sent there for some experiment or expertise? Or an Old Boy situation, where his friend put him in there for weird, convoluted personal reasons (or just because he wants to bang his wife)?

Also, I had 100% no idea that the partner from the flashback was the same person as in the dress at the picnic, except by context (i.e. “Oh I assume that flashback means those two ladies who look completely different from each other are the same person. Weird”). I guess it’s amazing what you can do with a little hair and makeup.

I think there was some CGI magic going on with the younger version of Kate. I barely recognized her as Carla Gugino.*

*who, I’d like to add, is officially HaaH (Hot as all Hell).

Oh, well, maybe if she was actually supposed to appear to be 12 years older, some kind of time-travel aspect might be a thing. I don’t think there’s anything that really suggests that at this point though, much more likely that everybody had brain washing or surgically induced strokes that make them incapable of remembering the passage of time or something.

Is this already on? I guess I should check it out. I guess I’m not surprised that the reception might be lukewarm since I thought the source material was not good. I figured it he show could capture that “what the hell is going on here” for a few episodes before it started to collapse.

The New York Times and The AV Club seem to agree with you guys, but The Guardian isn’t sure. I haven’t watched yet (I want to queue it up first), but I can say that there is a pretty plausible explanation for the time thing, which I think gets revealed midway through the season.

Juliette Lewis eh? Worth a shot to me.