2 out of 5

Created by: Jeff Rake

covers seasons 1 – 4

One of the smartest, most addictive, dumb shows I’ve ever seen.

Ever since Lost… we’ve wanted more Lost. The studios have wanted more Lost. And we’ve gotten some good puzzle box shows, and Game of Thrones zeitgeists, but setting aside the (no pun intended) crash and burn that series experienced towards its end, wanting to tap into the What’s Next? fun of the first few seasons is an ongoing goal for shows playing in those plot-twisty waters.

Manifest comes nowhere near that, but given it’s another mystery-centric, supernaturally-dusted series focused around a disappearing plane, Lost comparisons are inevitable. Thankfully, with a decade+ of TV to reflect upon, the show is not built around endless flashbacks or dangling ideas, and instead takes one central mystery – how flight 828 took off from Jamaica in 2013, hit some turbulence along the way, then landed in New York five years later, with those on the plane not having aged or experienced that time gap at all – and essentially sticks to it, resolving episodic mysteries and character dramas along the way. This allows for a great balance of instant satisfaction but also linear storytelling; quite ideal for these types of shows.

There’s also a decidedly less prestige feel to Manifest that’s evident from the start; clunky dialogue and singular-trope characters call to mind some lesser CW fare, and, again, with some similar subject matter – our time-traveling passengers seem to have some special powers – a show like The 4400 comes to mind. Now, as with Lost, I also liked The 4400, but I’m clearly also critical of it. Manifest ports over some hokey vibes from that series (and its ilk) while once more using some learnings to improve, by never straying too far into one-upping its supernatural / sci-fi aspects: there’s essentially one type of “power” the passengers get, and the show just vibes with that, with the slightest variations, throughout, also making sure to stick to one main avenue of explanation for its big, central Why Is This Happening? question.

This stuff keeps you hooked: the bottle episode case-solving that is layered into the investigations into that big question that are advanced at a reasonable pace, with occasional events to launch things forward in exciting ways.

Also, though: the show is so dumb. Characters have to be dumb to keep things on track, making dumb decisions in dumb vacuums, and spouting dumb rhetoric that everyone just automatically aligns with, and never really following anything resembling actual police or medical or governmental processes, and so on, and so on. And I appreciate that a lot of TV is dumb, but Manifest kicked off in those streaming years when we were declaring TV dead and yet more streamers were emerging by the day, lending every new linear TV show – this started on NBC – a sense of urgency in trying to prove itself; that is: the show felt like it was written with the expectation to be on the chopping block every single episode, while also having legit plans for building out its world. This made for a constantly cringey combo of trying to shortcut its lore, then kind of hurriedly reaching back to place the footprints leading to its current destination like they were always there. My “favorite” example of this is the (dumb) verbiage the “828ers” adopt to describe some of the events happening to them, such as referring to sticking together as tending to their “lifeboat,” and then suddenly, everyone is using the term “lifeboat” to explain this. In this balance of interesting ideas with stupid execution, we do eventually get around to exploring how faith factors into this experience for people, and faith comes with verbiage like that, so I get what the show was playing with, but still: 1-dimensional characters spouting this stuff in favor of making their dumb decisions is… hard to watch. Except for that (dumb) viewing loop which keeps you in.

Because I swear the storyline is actually smart! I repeat it back to myself and I’m impressed; there are some things cleverly linked together, and some really surprising directions in which the writers take things. And there’s a special hitch that helps a ton: the 828ers explain their situation to those close to them, meaning we don’t take up too much bandwidth needing to keep things secret. But woof… that dialogue, and those dumbass storylines where a police detective “solves crimes” by just making superpowered guess, then keeps covering it up by calling it an anonymous tip with a shrug, and multiply that, conceptually, to every characters’ actions.

Our lead actors commit to this stuff well, but given the cookie-cutter words they have to speak, and the soap opera subplots, their commitments are inevitably over-the-top. I will call out J. R. Ramirez, Luna Blaise, and Matt Long for bringing good balance to their roles.

There’s definitely a kind of comic book, pulpy spirit to Manifest, and later seasons lean into that more. But the bulk of it is built around trying to present that pulpy spirit via prime time drama prestige, but without the budget to really get it there. Because of that, it constantly sounds like the weakest show on the block, trying to prove itself; it’s cringey, dumb, and a little sad. And that does make it… not a great series. But if you listen to what it’s saying, it’s actually pretty interesting, and, like, I’d advise you to listen. While in the same breath, giving it two stars and reminding you that you’re gonna have to sit through an awful lot of cringey dumbness while listening.