TV Review: FOX’s ‘Touch’ With Kiefer Sutherland Comes With Heavy Hand

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CHICAGO – With elements of “Pay It Forward,” “The Number 23,” “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” classic inspirational TV fare like “Touched by an Angel,” and the later seasons of “Heroes,” FOX’s new drama, “Touch,” is an absolute mess. The special preview episode airing tonight, January 25th, 2012 (nearly two months in advance of its actual series premiere), feels like it’s actually trying to set a record for heavy-handed emotional manipulation. 9/11, a single father, child illness, suicide bombing, child death, a school bus crash — if a writer came to most showrunners and said they were going to cram all of these melodramatic devices into ONE EPISODE, they would be told to go back to the drawing board. Because the result would be a disaster like “Touch.”

HollywoodChicago.com Television Rating: 1.0/5.0
Television Rating: 1.0/5.0

From “Heroes” creator/writer Tim Kring, “Touch” is another piece of fiction that suggests we are all tied together in some interconnected spiritual sense. It’s not unlike “The Butterfly Effect” meets “The Secret” in the sense that it is a show for which the foundation is built on the idea that the action you take today could influence someone else on the other side of the globe. Not only do your actions create ripples but there are select people who know those ripples are coming and can essentially guide them. They don’t intervene directly (that would be too easy) but they often push people in the right direction, causing someone to be delayed so they can be in the right place to save lives, for example.

Touch
Touch
Photo credit: FOX

One such “guide” is the mentally-challenged 11-year-old Jake (David Mazouz), a young man who hasn’t spoken a word in his life (although narrates the show in some of its most heavy-handed writing) but spends hours scribbling numbers in his notebooks and collecting broken cell phones. Jake has been committing small crimes, breaking into buildings and climbing towers, all at the same time — 3:18. What does it mean? Is it a date? Something else? Total nonsense?

Touch
Touch
Photo credit: FOX

Jake’s dad Martin (Kiefer Sutherland) naturally assumes that he’s merely dealing with a troubled child and not an interconnected life guide. In fact, he’s nearly ready to give up on raising the increasingly-difficult young man, something he’s been forced to do since his wife died in the attacks on 9/11 (which are used in such a manipulative manner that one must assume that no one involved with the show even knows what the word exploitation means much less considered the fact that they were doing it). His need for help brings social worker Clea Hopkins (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) into the picture at just the right moment to realize that Jake is more than just an average case.

After meeting an expert on the interconnection espoused by “Touch,” Arthur Teller (Danny Glover), Martin realizes that it’s his job to serve as the voice for Jake, the man who can decipher his seemingly-random actions for the betterment of mankind. The premiere also globe trots and introduces viewers to a man trying to get back a phone that contains pictures of his recently-deceased daughter, a man obsessed with playing the same lottery numbers every day, a young Middle Eastern man who is tempted to become a suicide bomber so his family can get an oven, and an Irish singer hoping to break through and unexpectedly becoming popular on the other side of the globe. They will all be intertwined in a story that never ONCE feels genuine, believable, or emotionally honest.

There is manipulative melodrama and then there is “Touch,” which makes me question every time I’ve used the phrase before. It’s one thing to take a fantasy show like “Heroes” and tug at the heartstrings under the guise of what was essentially comic book fiction come to life. But “Touch” wants to be something much deeper and, therefore, feels far more disgusting in its exploitation. I’m not OK with suicide bombing being used for “Highway to Heaven” TV melodrama, much less what happened on 9/11. “Touch” takes serious subjects like emotionally damaged children, victims of 9/11, and teenagers willing to take lives to help their families, and turns it into weekday entertainment. Ewww.

The concept of “Touch” is not inherently flawed. We’d all like to believe we’re interconnected more than we might first think and I’ve often loved fiction built around this idea (most of Paul Auster’s books center on the theme and he’s one of my favorite authors). It’s the execution of “Touch” that makes it so offensively bad. This is not a touch — it’s a slap, a punch, a kick to the concept of good taste.

“Touch” stars Kiefer Sutherland, David Mazouz, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Danny Glover. It was created by David Kring and the pilot was directed by Francis Lawrence. It premieres with a preview episode on January 25th, 2012 at 8pm CST and returns in its regular time slot on Monday, March 19th, 2012 at 8pm CST on FOX.

HollywoodChicago.com content director Brian Tallerico

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

geminibap1's picture

I Liked It - Touch

I’m glad I never listen to critics. I liked “Touch” and look forward to March.

Ashur Assyria's picture

Looks like you already had

Looks like you already had this typed before the show was done.

ASOTO's picture

New FOX TV Show: "Touch"

Thank goodness, I have a reason to watch TV for something outside of the news again! This show is top-shelf, quality entertainment! I came into this show with mixed feelings and thinking that it was going to be a rip-off of the Nick Cage Movie “Knowing” but it was from a rip-off of anything. This Show has a wonderful premiss, which is supported by a great of characters and equally entertaining story-lines. This show is cleverly written with stories that are emotionally driven. Tonight’s show displayed that great TV can still be produced! Hopefully this tonight’s teaser event will attract a lot viewers quickly because I would hate to see this show meet the same fate as many former FOX shows that had high-hopes. I simply cannot say enough about this show and cannot wait until it is part of the FOX weekly line-up. I will certainly be a dedicated viewer and will recommend it as far and wide as I can!!

bbmomma2's picture

Dude, you are crazy. This

Dude, you are crazy. This show is fantastic. I don’t know what you were watching or who pissed in your Cheerios, but obviously you are a cynical critic who I’m not sure even watched this show. I’ll not be clicking on to any of your reviews anymore. And another thing…you called the boy mentally challenged…wrong. His response? I know you are but what am I?

squeegee's picture

no thanks

think I’ll stick with Person of Interest on CBS instead.

kid= super computer
keifer= Jim Caviezel

Fox got beat to the punch by about 6 months.

Ben Lourdes's picture

Fantastic pilot

The show got rave reviews and I thought it was fabulous. I have to try 10 shows to find one worth watching, much less one this good. Luckily for us, and for Fox, the vast majority of people loved this and totally disagree with this hostile, bitter reviewer who sounds like he needs a stiff drink.

Pam Brauer's picture

Loved "Touch" - Dammit! :-)

I listen to you weekly on WGN’s Saturday morning show and I must say I agree with so many of your opinions/reviews regarding television, however, I think you missed the boat on this one. The pilot was fabulous. Just a hint of Jack Bauer (dammit!) for us “24” fans, but enough vulnerability to make Kiefer a different character for this drama, which really worked for me. I find the concept intriguing and the storyline fascinating and look forward to seeing how the characters’ stories each week are interwoven. I think you have to give this one another chance.

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