NBC’s The Event wanted to be a big, loud conspiracy thriller about aliens living among us. It mostly succeeds as a big, loud conspiracy thriller, even when the aliens themselves are barely visible. The show ran for one season of 22 episodes, first airing on September 20, 2010 and ending on May 23, 2011. Created by Nick Wauters, it stars Jason Ritter as Sean Walker, an everyman caught up in a government cover-up after his would-be fiancée goes missing.
The premise is simple and ambitious. Sixty-six years earlier, a ship crashed in Alaska. Some of the survivors were captured and held in a secret government facility on fictional Mount Inostranka. Others escaped, hiding among ordinary Americans. Now, U.S. President Elias Martinez wants to release the detainees and reveal the truth to the public. But the CIA secretly plans to capture the escaped aliens, unaware that their lead agent is one of them. Caught in the middle is Sean Walker, whose proposal to Leila Buchanan on a Caribbean cruise is interrupted when she vanishes from the ship.
Trailer, via FinalDestination4180.
The Crash Site and Its Secrets
The series opens with a flashback to near the end of World War II. A craft of unknown origin crashes in the Brooks Range of northern Alaska. Its passengers look human but are later revealed to be of extraterrestrial origin. Their DNA differs from humans by less than one percent. They age at a much slower rate. Ninety-seven captured survivors refused to cooperate with U.S. interrogators, so they were kept in the government facility. The rest, the Sleepers, escaped with minor injuries and blended into society.
The show spends its early episodes establishing this history through flashbacks and interviews with witnesses. The facility, Mount Inostranka, is a fictional location, and the show treats it as a dark, isolated place where secrets accumulate. The government has kept the detainees alive for decades, feeding them and studying them, though the exact nature of the research remains vague. The show trusts the audience to accept that the aliens exist without explaining exactly how they got here or why they look human.
President Martinez’s Plan
President Martinez learns of the facility shortly after his inauguration. He meets the leader of the detainees and decides to release them and disclose their existence publicly. This decision puts him at odds with the intelligence agencies, which object to revealing the aliens to the world. The show portrays Martinez as a principled leader willing to risk his career for the truth, though the script rarely explores his personal cost beyond a few lines of dialogue.
His plans stall when an assassination attempt on him is foiled by means beyond human technology. The CIA realizes there are other aliens hiding in the population and begins a secret operation to find and detain them. The irony is that the agent chosen to lead this effort is himself one of the extraterrestrials. The show never explains how the CIA managed to recruit him or why he agreed to the assignment.
The Sleepers’ Mixed Reaction
The escaped aliens, known as the Sleepers, react differently to the CIA’s hunt. Some want to try to salvage attempts at peaceful assimilation. Others want to fight back against humanity. This split creates tension within the alien community, and the show occasionally dramatizes internal debates about whether to trust humans or attack them. These scenes are often the most interesting parts of the series, because they treat the aliens as people with genuine conflicts rather than as monolithic villains.
The show’s writers lean into the idea that the aliens are not inherently evil but are reacting to centuries of captivity and suspicion. The Sleepers have lived in fear for decades, hiding their true nature from friends and neighbors. The show suggests that their aggression is a response to provocation, not a natural instinct. This nuance is rare in alien invasion stories and gives the series a moral weight that many sci-fi thrillers lack.
Sean Walker’s Investigation
Sean Walker is the show’s main character, and his investigation drives the narrative forward. He is an everyman, a normal guy whose life is upended when his girlfriend disappears. The show uses his perspective to ground the conspiracy in relatable stakes. Walker is not a trained agent or a genius scientist; he is a regular person trying to find his missing fiancée. This makes his discoveries feel earned rather than handed to him.
Walker’s investigation eventually uncovers the assassination plot against the president. He connects the disappearance of Leila to the larger conspiracy involving the aliens. The show builds toward a moment where Walker realizes the scope of the cover-up, and that realization becomes the engine of the final episodes. The show trusts Walker to be clever enough to piece together the puzzle, even though the clues are sometimes telegraphed well in advance.
The Cast and Its Limits
The cast is competent but uneven. Jason Ritter carries the show as Sean Walker, and he does a solid job of conveying the character’s frustration and determination. Sarah Roemer plays Leila Buchanan, Walker’s missing fiancée, and her absence is felt throughout the series. Laura Innes plays Sophia Maguire, a government official who helps Walker, and Blair Underwood plays President Elias Martinez.
The show’s supporting cast includes Ian Anthony Dale as Simon Lee, a sleeper alien; Scott Patterson as Michael Buchanan, Leila’s father; Taylor Cole as Vicky Roberts, a government agent; Lisa Vidal as Christina Martinez, the president’s wife; Bill Smitrovich as Raymond Jarvis; Clifton Collins Jr. as Thomas; and Željko Ivanek as Blake Sterling. The show gives each actor a chance to shine, but the writing often limits them to stock roles. The aliens are frequently reduced to stereotypes, with some portrayed as noble and others as violent, and the human characters are sometimes flat.
“The Event is an emotional, high-octane conspiracy thriller.”
The Science Fiction Problem
The show is advertised as science fiction, but it spends more time on conspiracy and drama than on the actual science. The aliens are described as having DNA slightly less than one percent different from humans, but the show never explains what that means in practical terms. Their slow aging is mentioned, but the consequences are rarely explored. The show is more interested in the political ramifications of alien existence than in the biological details.
The show also struggles with the scale of its premise. If aliens have lived among humans for sixty-six years, why has no one noticed? The show handwaves this by suggesting that the aliens are rare and well-hidden. But the show’s own plot requires that people regularly encounter aliens without recognizing them, which creates a logical gap. The show tries to have it both ways: aliens are everywhere and yet invisible, and the script does not resolve the contradiction.
The Final Season and Its Cancellation
On May 13, 2011, NBC canceled the series after one season. The finale was planned as a cliffhanger, but the cancellation meant that the show ended abruptly. The final episode does not fully resolve the assassination plot or the alien conflict. The show leaves questions unanswered about the fate of the detainees and the Sleepers. The show’s creators were clearly planning a second season, and the abrupt end feels like a loss.
The show’s tone is consistent throughout. It is emotional and high-octane, as the show’s description promises. The pacing is fast, with new revelations arriving almost every episode. The show keeps the audience guessing about who knows what and who is lying. The show is at its best when it focuses on the human characters and their reactions to the extraordinary circumstances. The aliens themselves are less compelling than the people around them.
The Verdict
The Event is a flawed but entertaining series. It takes a bold premise and executes it with energy and ambition. The show’s weaknesses are structural: the aliens are underdeveloped, the science is thin, and the conspiracy is too large to be fully explained. But the show compensates with strong performances, a gripping central mystery, and a commitment to its own rules.
The show’s strengths are its emotional core and its ability to build suspense. The show knows how to keep the audience invested in Sean Walker’s quest to find Leila, and it pays off that investment with a satisfying resolution to his personal storyline. The show also handles the political aspects with care, showing how a president’s decisions affect the country and the people around him.
The show’s weaknesses are harder to ignore. The aliens are often treated as props rather than characters, and the show’s attempts to explain the science behind their existence fall short. The show also relies heavily on coincidence and convenience, with characters frequently stumbling into information they need. The show is at its best when it focuses on the human drama, but it cannot sustain that focus for an entire season.
The Event is a show that aspires to greatness but falls short. It is worth watching for its ambition and its occasional moments of brilliance, but it is not a perfect series. The show deserves credit for trying to tell a big story, even if the execution is uneven. The show is ultimately a mixed bag, a show that is better than its reputation but still flawed.
The show’s legacy is modest. It was canceled after one season, and it did not spawn a franchise. The show is remembered primarily as a failed attempt at a serialized sci-fi drama. But the show’s influence can be seen in later shows that tried to balance conspiracy and science fiction, and it stands as a reminder of the risks of overreaching.
The show’s final score is 6.7 out of 10.
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