(Photo: Courtesy of NBC)

If they weren’t in New York to begin with, you can bet that this gang—the Japanese salaryman who teleports, the Indian genetics professor with a superpowers theory, the Las Vegas stripper with a guardian-angel doppelgänger, the beat cop who hears what people think, the high-school cheerleader who can walk through fire, the male nurse who can fly, and the drug-addicted artist who is painting the horrific future—would wind up in this city together. Because their job, whether they know it or not, is to save the world from 9/11. As much as this might sound like The Fantastic Four Meet Karl Rove’s Talking Points, it all looks a lot more promising than Iraq. Talented actors, X-Files camerawork, fitful glimpses of a woo-woo mythos, and the reappearance on our television screens, like some recurring Fisher King, of the much-missed Adrian Pasdar add up to intrigue and titillation.

NBC, Mondays, 9 P.M.

Related:

• Archive: “Television”
• Articles by John Leonard
• Table of Contents: Oct 9, 2006 issue of New York | Subscribe!