Touch Season 1 DVD Review (Kirk Haviland)

Touch Season 1 DVD

Starring Kiefer Sutherland, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, David Mazouz, Roxanna Brusso and Danny Glover

Created by Tim Kring

New on DVD from Fox Home Entertainment is the first season of the new series from Heroes creator Tim Kring, Touch. The mid-season replacement from earlier this year is another high concept production from Kring, this time focusing between the relationship of a father and his son. But of course with Kring things are never quite that easy.

Martin Bohm (Sutherland), a former reporter who now works at the airport, is a widower and single father.  His wife was a victim of the 9/11 attacks and he has been left with his 11 year old son Jake (Mazouz). Jake has never said a word in his entire life and reacts violently if anyone tries to touch him. But when Jake is taken into the custody of the state after an incident, Martin discovers that Jake can communicate and see the future through numbers, complex algorithms that Jake has the inherent ability to decipher. It’s up to Martin, with the help of Jake’s primary caretaker Clea (Mbatha-Raw) and a disgraced doctor (Glover) who specializes in numbers himself, to help Martin decipher the clues and help the people Jake sets him on to.

Touch is the welcome return to weekly television for Kiefer Sutherland that people have been waiting for since Sutherland’s series 24 finished  a couple of years ago. Creator Kring brings his trademark sense of style and flair for intricate and complex storytelling that weaves throughout an entire season. Characters appear in their ‘highlight’ episode, only to re-appear as supporting characters in later episodes as the story twists and turns throughout the season. Kiefer is his typical solid self, his Martin carrying many of the strong willed and intuitive characteristics of his classic Jack Bauer character. The rest of the cast does solid work. Brusso’s very shady care home supervisor whose intentions are very questionable is a highlight, as Kring writes ensemble pieces like this well. The situations and mysteries play out throughout the episodes as seemingly unrelated incidents are shown to be related in different ways, some are more ridiculous and preposterous than others, a ‘Dance Contest’ in one of the episodes really does not work, but the writing is solid enough to keep you engaged throughout the craziness.

The show itself carries tones of Kring’s Heroes, hopefully it can stay relevant for more than the two seasons Heroes was before its massive tailspin though, 24, Numbers and The Missing. It’s well produced and looks great, the setting of New York playing into the storylines on multiple instances, and the directors of the episodes showing a steady hand behind the camera. The ways that are used to describe and physically show Jake’s numbers and equation and how they fit together are scenes that could easily be disastrous but they are expertly handled and played out onscreen.

The disc comes equipped with deleted scenes and an extended pilot episode. The pilot plays out well and the deleted scenes are mainly items cut for pacing that will hardly be missed. There are also two behind the scenes featurettes included about the filming of the series.

In the end, Touch is a well-crafted piece of television melodrama with a seasoned actor in the lead and an accomplished creator behind the camera. Touch Season 1 on DVD is a solid rent and a decent buy option, and in the end Touch is a recommend.

Till Next Time,

Movie Junkie TO

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