TV Review - La Brea

This year, NBC canceled two science-fiction shows, Manifest (2018) and Debris (2021). Of those two, I compared Manifest to ABC's Lost (2004), due to the obvious link of both involving a group of survivors who were aboard an airplane. Lost was also about that same group of survivors being stranded on a piece of land that was seemingly removed from space and time. Lost specifically delved into the idea of time travel in its later seasons. It was about how a diverse group of people tried to live in such a cut-off and primitive situation. Creator David Appelbaum (NCIS: New Orleans and The Mentalist) is taking that idea and applying it to a slightly different piece of land.

Natalie Zea (Justified and The Following) stars as Eve Harris, a wife and mother to two teenagers, a girl and boy. One day, she's driving her two children through Los Angeles. They're near the Hollywood Hills in an area of the city known as La Brea where the famous La Brea Tar Pitts and Museum is located. All of a sudden, she and her children feel an earthquake, which isn't uncommon in Los Angeles, but it's immediately followed by a sinkhole that opens up. The sinkhole is so massive that it swallows an entire city block or more. Parts of Wilshire Blvd. is swallowed completely. Eve and her children try to escape. Her daughter makes it out, but Eve and her son fall into the sinkhole, seemingly to their deaths.

Eoin Macken (The Night Shift and Merlin) co-stars as Gavin Harris, the husband to Eve. Gavin is an Air Force pilot. Unfortunately, the government isn't allowing him to fly because of an incident that happened in 2018 where his plane crashed. Gavin claims that he crashed due to visions he was having that distracted him. On the day of the sinkhole, Gavin was a half-hour away in El Segundo, which is an area near LAX. Gavin was there applying for a new job when he gets the news about the sinkhole. He thinks at first that his wife and son are dead, but eventually he starts having more visions, telling him that Eve and his son are alive.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security or DHS learns that Gavin has this super-power of being able to see what happened to the people who disappeared in the sinkhole. He then is involved in DHS' rescue operation to try to go down the sinkhole and try to find where the people went. This is something that Lost never did. The people who disappeared didn't have anyone outside of themselves working to find them. The people were totally on their own. This series has an entire government operation trying to rescue them, and, at least for Eve and her son, there are people outside the sinkhole that love and care about them.

Chiké Okonkwo (Being Mary Jane and Banshee) also co-stars as Ty Coleman, a Black man who befriends Eve after they fall into the sinkhole. Instead of being deep in the Earth, after they fell into the sinkhole, they were transported into an open field near a forest and some mountains. They also don't see any buildings or development that would indicate where on Earth they are. Until they figure out where on Earth they are, Ty helps Eve to survive, meaning he helps to find food, water and whatever else they need to make it through. Strangely though, this is after Eve stops Ty from committing suicide by gun. He has to overcome whatever issue pushed him to suicide almost.

Like Lost, there is a diversity of characters here. Rohan Mirchandaney (Hotel Mumbai and Mystery Road) plays Scott Israni, a grad student who knows a lot about history. He's a bit of a coward when prehistoric or extinct creatures start emerging and attacking the sinkhole survivors. He seems to be of India heritage. Jon Seda (Chicago P.D. and The Pacific) plays Sam Velez, a doctor and former Navy who appears to be Latino or Hispanic. There's even an interracial gay couple. One half of which is a lawyer named Tony Greene, played by Pacharo Mzembe (Love and Monsters and Terra Nova). The other is an actor named Billy Fisher, played by Stephen Lopez.

Unlike Lost, the mystery of where the sinkhole survivors are and what happened to them is pretty much solved in the second episode. People won't be frustrated with some forever mystery about what's happening on a metaphysical or supernatural level. The question will be if the survivors can find a way back home and how do they survive in the meantime. There will no doubt be drama about who will befriend whom or who will hook up with whom, as well as many of them dealing with personal issues they had before the sinkhole. Yet, as an adventure and slight thriller, the series manages to be engaging and entertaining.

Rated TV-14-LV.
Running Time: 1 hr.
Tuesdays at 9 PM on NBC.