Wayward Pines - Blu-ray

Movie: While searching for two missing colleagues, FBI agent Ethan Burke (Matt Dillon) crashes his car into a tree, only to wake up a short time later in the hospital of the small town of Wayward Pines. In fact, the missing person's trail seems to run right here. But in the small town, Ethan only encounters a wall of silence. The local sheriff Pope (Terrence Howard) is just as unwilling to help Ethan as the mysterious Dr. Jenkins (Toby Jones). On his own, Ethan is still able to track down his colleagues. However, one of them is dead and the other, Ethan's ex-lover Kate (Carla Gugino) claims to have been living in Wayward Pines for several years. Ethan's attempts to reason with her fail, as do his attempts to contact the FBI or his family. When his wife Theresa (Shannyn Sossamon) and son Ben (Charlie Tahan) suddenly show up in Wayward Pines and the three of them are now stuck in town, Ethan is determined to solve the mystery of Wayward Pines against all odds. But the discoveries he makes far eclipse all his worst fears.

Wayward Pines, the adaptation of Blake Crouch's trilogy of novels, marks The Sixth Sense director M. Night Shyamalan's first attempt at a TV series. In addition to directing the pilot, he also took on the role of executive producer. After taking a lot of flak for his recent cinematic work, Shyamalan seems to have returned to old strength with this ten-part mini-series. The promos and pilot at least suggested as much, suggesting a mix of Twin Peaks and Twilight Zone with a dash of Lost. Instead of waiting until the first (and only?) season finale for the resolution, the big mystery was revealed about halfway through the season. And with that, the style of the story changed completely. You have to be able to get into that. But then the second half of the season offers perfect mystery entertainment with a lot of suspense and a thrilling atmosphere.

With actors like Matt Dillon, Terrence Howard, Oscar winner Melissa Leo, Juliette Lewis or even Carla Gugino (Sin City) the series is very prominent and well cast. The filming locations in British Columbia, Canada, provide a steady build-up of suspense, as does the mystery, presented in bits and pieces, about the rules that must be followed in Wayward Pines, the strange behavior of some residents and the fact that the clocks here seem to go quite differently than in the rest of the world. Although especially at the beginning comparisons with series like Twin Peaks almost force themselves, Wayward Pines manages very quickly to hit its own tone and to pull the audience into its spell.

More should not be revealed at this point. Only this much perhaps: if you're into the big twist, the last episode works really well as a season finale, but as a series finale it would be a wee bit disappointing. But after much critical praise and decent ratings, there's at least a small spark of hope that the show's creators and novelist Crouch will get together to work out a sequel to the story about the mysterious small town in Idaho that will be at least as exciting and first-rate directed as these very good ten episodes. Absolutely worth watching!

Image + Sound: The Blu-ray's image is crisp and shows little discernible loss of quality, even in the darker scenes. The color scheme appears a bit undercooked, which does a good job of emphasizing the very special atmosphere of the series. The sound is present in an atmospheric DTS mix, which remains somewhat restrained in many scenes, but repeatedly through purposefully used sound effects and ambient noises even in the multi-channel range for audible movement and occasionally for a comforting goosebumps. Good!

Extras: The bonus material consists of two short featurettes. The first invites the viewer on a tour of Wayward Pines (approx. 8:59 min.), with the makers primarily discussing the sets and décor. The second short documentary then delves into the mythology of the series, though it doesn't really go into much depth in just under 10 minutes. Still, both featurettes are well worth watching!

Conclusion: Wayward Pines is a gripping mini-series that starts out like a mysterious Twin Peaks clone, but then quickly takes a completely different direction. If you can get into the drastic twist that episode 5 brings, you're in for some extremely suspenseful and tightly plotted mystery fare at its best. The Blu-ray presents the ten episodes in very atmospheric picture and sound quality. Only the bonus material consisting of two short documentaries could have been a little more extensive. Nevertheless, there is here quite clearly one: Absolutely recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp