Ah, out with the old, in with the new. The television season is dead, long live the next television season. And to prepare for it, I’m going to review new shows as the pilots become available.

The Nine; ABC, Wednesday, 10:00 PM

“Look…I woke up…I went to work, it was a regular day…and then I ended up in there…”

This is one of the more interesting, yet stranger new shows of this season. The program opens following two handfuls of people starting out the day…a day that will change all of them, and not necessarily for the better. Nick the cop (Timothy Daly, Wings, The Fugitive, Eyes), just coming off of a gambling problem, has a thing for teller Eva (Lourdes Benedicto, 24); Jeremy the doctor (Scott Wolf Everwood) is having another wonderful morning saving the sick, Assistant District Attorney Kathryn (Kim Raver, 24) is grabbing a morning quickie with her boss when her mother (Susan Sullivan, Dharma and Greg and yeah, Falcon Crest) calls from the bank complaining about the manager Malcolm (Chi McBride, Boston Public, Killer Instinct, and my personal favorite, The John Larroquette Show) who’s having his own problems with his daughter Felicia (Dana Davis, Veronica Mars) and another customer Egan (John Billingsley, Star Trek: Enterprise) who is secretly plotting suicide.

Malcolm (Chi McBride), Felicia (Dana Davis) and Nick (Timothy Daly) find their ordeal is only beginning.

Meanwhile, outside the bank, brothers Randall (Jeffrey Pierce) and Lucas (Owain Yeoman, Kitchen Confidential) are planning a smash-and-grab robbery; they carefully plot everything to make certain they are in the bank only moments. They make the hit, and Lucas tells Nick, “Don’t try to be a hero, man…this’ll all be over in five minutes.”

You might want to go over all that again, since that’s a heckuva lot to absorb in only the first ten minutes.

Ok, so fifty-two hours later, the SWAT team launches an assault against the bank; with tear-gas everywhere and explosions destroying the glass front of the building, the remaining hostages are freed, Randall is shot while Lucas surrenders. Eva is rushed to the hospital with fatal wounds, while the others are all loaded onto a bus for debriefing at the police station…as Kathryn tells them, they are all suspects as well as victims.

“…and then I ended up in there. With all of these people. Most of us didn’t know each other…at all…but after what we went through…for the rest of our lives…”

Outside of the nine remaining hostages, no one can truly understand, and no one can comfort them. They find themselves slowly turning away from “outsiders;” wives, friends, and turning toward each other in large ways and small….Lizzie (Jessica Collins) the hospital social worker and vegetarian suddenly needs bacon, and no longer needs Jeremy; Felicia can’t remember anything that happened inside the bank; Kathryn believes she owes Nick for her mother’s life.

They gather at Eva’s funeral, where Jeremy and Franny hook up almost out of desperation, and Lizzie confesses to Kathryn that she’s pregnant with Jeremy’s child, but doesn’t want him to know. Nick is offered a promotion and medal so long as he keeps his mouth shut about the mistakes made by hostage negotiators. Egan and Lizzy organize a get-together at a local diner, so they don’t lose touch - when dishes are dropped, the entire table starts, then laughs with the shared understanding. Only Felicia couldn’t make it…she’s secretly going to the prison to see Lucas…

As you can see, this series is not so much about the bank robbery, although I’m absolutely certain we will continue to learn bits and pieces about what went on in there through flashbacks. This series is about The Nine, and how that fifty-two hours changed their lives.

And that, I think, is going to be the fatal flaw of this series. While the pilot is one of the most exciting and interesting of the current crop of new shows, the long-term view seems more…soap opera than thriller. Secrets held from outsiders, secrets held from other members of this exclusive club. But the drama will come not from the excitement of the chase, as in Vanished, but in the interraction of the people. In that respect, this pilot is the worst possible representation of the series, since the adrenal rush of the robbery is the focal point of this episode, and the cerebreal introspection of the robbery will be the focus of the rest of the series.

It might be interesting to watch this unfold, particularly with this solid cast of dependable performers giving it their A-game. But still, we won’t know until we get there, since this pilot isn’t representative of what the series will eventually hold.