Touch, Or How Jack Bauer Saves The World With Math (A CherryOnTop Review)

6.5 out of 10 cherries

If Fox has done one thing right this mid-season, it is bringing back stars we missed, like Jorge Garcia (Lost’s Hurley) on Alcatraz and Kiefer Sutherland on Touch. As Touch began though, I wasn’t sure if I missed Sutherland as much as missed his 24 alter-ego Jack Bauer. I have to admit, after eight seasons of 24, it’s strange seeing Sutherland on TV where he doesn’t shoot someone or cut their head off with a hacksaw. In Touch we get a kinder gentler Sutherland, who quite frankly could use a good hacksaw.

Touch opens with a voiceover from Sutherland’s young son, Jake (David Mazouz) explaining how the world is interconnected and finishes with how he has never spoken. Sutherland plays Martin Bohm, a 9/11 widower who gave up his career as a journalist to work various jobs to support Jake. One job as a baggage handler, let’s him take home lost cell phones for Jake. Martin answers the lost phone of a British man who desperately needs it back. As Martin attempts to get his information, he’s interrupted by a call from Jake’s school. This leads to the British man’s phone falling onto a piece of luggage and making a worldwide journey, touching the lives of people in Ireland, Egypt, and Japan. Martin finds out Jake has left school and climbed a cell phone tour for the third time. This incident puts the Bohms on the radar of social worker Clea, played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who recommends Martin place Jake in a special school.

At the school, Martin and Clea begin to notice the numbers that Jake has been writing in his book popping up in various places. Danny Glover, in an all too brief scene, appears as a professor who understands Jake’s gift for finding numerical patterns. He suggests Jake is reaching out to him and that Martin needs to follow the pattern. It’s at this point that Touch really takes off. After a slow start, Sutherland’s story and the stories of the British man’s lost phone, an Irish call center operator, a lottery winner, and Egyptian kid forced into terrorism, all converge, and like dominoes, each connects and helps to solve the problems of the others. Martin is convinced of the patterns once a man he was fighting misses his train and then goes on to save a school bus of kids.

Touch, takes too long to get going. Once you realize how Jake and Martin’s stories are connected to the others the show becomes very entertaining. Perhaps in future episodes if the mystery is uncovered sooner, it could then move quicker to the seemingly random lives all affecting each other, where the show is truly entertaining. What works is the relationship between Sutherland and Mazouz, although once Sutherland starts running and yelling, it’s hard not to think of him as Jack Bauer. Also more of the supporting cast, especially Danny Glover, would be nice to see. Hopefully the series will be like the sneak preview, and once it gets going it will be more exciting. Until then if you need a Sutherland fix, every season of 24 is on Netflix.

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January 27th, 2012 | Dan | Comments Off |