0/5

The Crossing

If you're missing Wayward Pines or Resurrection this small-town sci-fi may have some appeal.

If I was from the future, looking to time-travel to the present I could think of a lot more hospitable places to surface than a Canadian coast.

Sure it is picturesque, but it looks positively freezing in The Crossing the new sci-fi series screening on Showcase.

The opening sequence is arresting with bodies washing up on the chilly beach of Port Canaan (a fictional US town filmed near Vancouver). For Sheriff Jude Ellis (Steve Zahn), who is probably more used to marooned whales, it’s a baffling sight. Sunken ship? Plane crash? Check your genre Sheriff, you better sit down.

With 47 survivors (and not 4400 in case that rings a bell), Homeland Security agent Emma (Sandrine Holt) and her team are soon on site to process these mysterious asylum seekers. Given the current Border Policy of the US government she is surprisingly welcoming. No children are ripped from their parents’ arms.

8 year old Leah (Bailey Skodje) tells them the survivors are indeed escaping a war. But one that hasn’t happened yet…..

In the spirit of smalltown US dramas, the Sheriff is quickly frozen out of the national operation, triggering various cliches about the Feds throwing their weight around “my town.” Spoon-fed pieces of information he begins to plot his own investigation, especially when he encounters rogue survivor Reece (Natalie Martinez) who is hoping to reunite with her daughter, Leah. Did we mention her super-powers?

Meanwhile Emma and her team are trying to make sense of the wild explanations about a war, time-travel, villains and then some. When she reports to her superiors the budget doesn’t seem to extend to any more than one bloke.

The against-type casting of Steve Zahn, who rose to prominence in interesting films such as Reality Bites and Happy, Texas, is the most interesting thing in this series which lasted 11 episodes on the ABC network. While it isn’t a disaster there’s just nothing new offered amongst these tropes that we’ve all seen before.

That leaves me wondering why it’s been afforded a slot on the Showcase channel, which I associate with premium curation (why not FOX8?).

The Crossing is not very challenging, but if you were into Wayward Pines, Resurrection or The Dome this might have some appeal.

The cast also includes NZ actress Simone Kessell and Aussie Georgina Haig.

9:30pm Monday on Showcase.

3 Responses

  1. I have had a preview of The Crossing and the beginning looks promising but unfortunately the show only has one season so the story will likely be quickly wrapped up without any of it’s potential fulfilled, especially if you love the ever re-imagined dystopian time travel genre.

  2. Showcase is using repeats of House and Elementary to fill slots, 13 eps of The Crossing is a step up from that. Fox 8 is promoting Cloak & Dagger, and has the 100, The Gifted, Runaways and all the Fall season genre stuff, so probably figure they have enough of it.

Leave a Reply