Fox has released a trailer for Touch, a supernatural drama developed by Heroes creator Tim Kring and staring 24 superdude Kiefer Sutherland.
From the trailer, it looks like it’s going to be more action oriented than the simple synopsis implies.
Jake is communicating with his father via numbers, but not exactly directly.
Martin, Sutherland’s character, has to interpret these numbers from Jake’s actions, and figure out what they mean, but it’s not just about their lives. It seems like after the pilot, each episode will be about Martin struggling to discover what Jake is trying to tell him. He will then likely use that information to save people from terrible fates.
The formulae seems like it will actually be somewhat similar to another new show, Person of Interest, where the protagonist is just given the identity of a person, and has to figure out what to do with the information each episode.
Here’s that official synopsis:
“At the center of Touch is Martin Bohm (Sutherland), a widower and single father, haunted by an inability to connect to his mute 11-year-old son, Jake (David Mazouz). After multiple failed attempts at keeping Jake in school, Martin is visited by Clea Hopkins (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), a social worker sent to evaluate Jake’s well-being.
“Everything changes when Martin discovers that Jake possesses the gift of staggering genius – the ability to see things that no one else can and the patterns that connect seemingly unrelated events. Jake is indeed communicating. But it’s not with words, it’s with numbers. Martin meets Arthur Dewitt (Danny Glover), a professor and an expert on children who possess special gifts when it comes to numbers. Now, it’s up to Martin to decipher the meaning and connect the numbers to the cast of characters whose lives they affect.”
Frankly, I wasn’t looking forward to this show until I saw the trailer. I also now understand why it’s such a good vehicle for Sutherland. It seems like it could be really compelling and, so far, looks like the most interesting new show of next summer.
The first season of Touch will premier in the Spring pilot season, and run through the summer of 2012.
