Kiefer kinder, gentler this time around

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Helgenberger

So, here's a phrase that absolutely no one would ever have used to describe Kiefer Sutherland's last TV series, 24:

"Social-benefit storytelling -- the idea of trying to use archetypal narrative to create and promote a positive energy in the world..."

There were a lot of things that 24 created during its eight-year run -- mayhem, suspense, gunfire, fear, thrills, new methods of torturing TV heroes and villains, and a very impressive Jack-Bauer-dispatched body count -- but positive energy and an uplifting message were definitely not among them.

And the fact that Touch, the new Fox drama that has lured Sutherland back to prime time, is a complex family drama with a spiritual undertone is surely one of the reasons the Canadian-raised actor has decided to return, so soon, to the TV-series grind.

Touch, which is being given a sneak-preview showing tonight at 8 on Fox (and, in Canada, on Global), is one of the most intriguing new titles in this new year's very busy midseason schedule (after this week's airing, Touch won't return until its official series premiere on March 19).

Sutherland stars as Martin Bohm, who, like Bauer, is a widower and a single father (in this case, his wife was a stockbroker who died in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center). Beyond that, there are no similarities. This new character is a mild-mannered, overburdened and underemployed sort who is struggling to make ends meet while caring for his young son, Jake (David Mazouz), an autistic 11-year-old who has never spoken and refuses to let anyone, including his father, touch him.

Jake is obsessed with numbers and patterns, spending his wordless days jotting figures and doodling circles and spirals that appear to be random but actually aren't. In fact, Jake is one of a select few who understand that everything and everyone in the world is connected by a series of complex numerical sequences.

Jake's inability to socialize with others leads to problems at his special school, and a worker from the local family-services department (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) arrives at Martin's door to inform him that his son may need to be institutionalized. But just when it seems like Martin is losing control of his parenting situation, an online search leads him to an expert (Danny Glover) who claims to understand Jake's condition and suggests that there's more to the young boy's doodling than random number progressions.

As Wednesday's episode unfolds, the widely dispersed storyline also introduces several peripheral characters in various parts of the world whose lives quickly become connected by the numbers Jake keeps jotting -- including an Iraqi teen whose desire to help his cash-strapped parents is driving him toward terrorist plotters, a man desperately searching for a lost cell phone containing pictures of his deceased daughter, a grief-stricken New York firefighter who has, for years, been playing the same collection of lottery numbers with 9/11 significance.

In the end, as series writer/producer Tim Kring (Heroes) would have us believe, they are all -- and we are all -- somehow connected. It's an intriguing premise and, by the end of Touch's first hour, it offers the beginnings of a story that shows great potential to uplift as it entertains.

This prime-time newcomer evolves at a leisurely pace that would surely drive a clock-obsessed operative like Jack Bauer to violence, but for regular folks like Martin Bohm and you and me, such a gentler Touch might feel just about right.

-- -- --

Willows waves goodbye: When last we saw CSI Catherine Willows, she was hunkered down in the back seat of a speeding SUV, clutching a gunshot wound to her left side and hoping new boss D.B. Russell could outrun the special-ops assassins who had just tried to take her out.

In the second half of the C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation two-parter (tonight at 9, CBS and CTV) that marks the end of series-original Marg Helgenberger's 12-year run on the CBS series, job one is staying alive, job two is solving a complex case involving a trail of victims and a shadowy guns-for-hire firm, and job three is figuring out what the future holds for Willows beyond this farewell episode.

By C.S.I. standards, it's a pretty routine investigation that employs all the usual high-tech crime-solving gimmicks, but the series' producers have done right by Helgenberger by creating a storyline in which the stakes are very high, both personally and professionally, for Willows.

In a nice touch, the episode's most crucial sequence requires Willows to revisit the Vegas-strip-joint roots that were explained a dozen years ago when the character was introduced. Without giving anything away, let's just say that Helgenberger's C.S.I. bosses have found a fitting and very dignified way for the actress and the show's fans to bid farewell to Willows.

brad.oswald@freepress.mb.ca

TV REVIEW

Touch

Starring Kiefer Sutherland, David Mazouz and Gugu Mbatha-Raw

Tonight at 8

Fox and Global

4 stars out of 5

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 25, 2012 C3