I’ve watched four episodes of NBCs Believe and I’m sorry but I’m not a believer. When I first heard about Believe I was excited at the prospect of another TV series about someone with special powers. I really need to realise that these types of shows can be limited in storytelling.
Bo Adams (Johnny Sequoyah) is a 10-year-old girl with telepathic and telekinetic powers. She was raised in a special programme by Skouras (Kyle MacLachlan), who wants to exploit her abilities as a weapon for the government until former partner Winter kidnaps her.
Winter and his band of merry helpers think it’s a brilliant idea to take Bo from the only home she has known to be raised by a man named Tate (Jake McLaughlin) who is facing the chair on death row. In the first episode Winter and the merry helpers break Tate out of prison and try to financially incentivise him to take care of Bo. That deal falls through when the money is lost but because Tate is a wanted man with few options he goes on the run with Bo.
Wanted by the authorities Tate and Bo move from town to town but somehow the FBI are never far behind but despite all their resources they never manage to reel the duo in. Along the way Bo uses her ever increasing powers to help random strangers despite the danger to herself and Tate. The special effects are cool as Bo flips a car with her mind or shakes stuff up but I need more than cool special effects, I need a believable story.
If your asking why someone convicted of murder makes a good guardian for a child the answer would be that he is the child’s father and he’s probably not guilty. Tate doesn’t know about Bo and Winter is taking his sweet ass time telling him which I find off putting. Having sprung him out of prison and set his life on a path where he cannot rest the decent thing to do would be to say by the ‘way she’s your kid.’
I’m sure Bo’s relationship to Tate will be revealed in a future episode but I won’t be sticking around to witness it. The series is very procedural in nature: Bo and Tate find a safe place, Bo helps someone, the authorities close in on them and they move on. It reminds me a lot of Tim Kring’s Touch, the show that starred Kiefer Sutherland as the father of an autistic boy who predicts events before they happen. That was another series I really wanted to love but subsequently abandoned.
I’m beginning to think I don’t like TV shows with cute kids in the main role who do things that are supposed to tug at the heartstrings each week. Maybe if the writing was a little tighter, I probably would have shed a few tears but as you already know that Bo is about to reunite long lost lovers or some such the emotional pay off is way off. Plus the child with super powers as a government weapon storyline doesn’t jibe well with me.
Have you watched Believe? Are you a believer?
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