Mysterious Ways has intriguing story
By Ann Hodges
Copyright 2000 Houston Chronicle TV Critic
Mysterious Ways premieres tonight on NBC, but it won't be there for long. In six weeks, it moves to a new network home on PAX.
Mysterious Ways, indeed. Who'd have thought, this time two years ago, that NBC and PAX would ever make a marriage?
PAX's reason for being was to offer a cleaner, gentler, family-friendly option, while the other television networks slid into the muddy waters of violence, sex and dirty talk. And those networks made great sport of putting PAX's do-good down.
But last September, NBC saw the light -- or, more precisely, the long-term corporate advantage.
NBC bought one-third of PAX. A new programming partnership was born, and tonight, meet the first offspring of that merger.
Mysterious Ways, a series more anchored to PAX's programming philosophy than to NBC's, stars Adrian Pasdar, late of Fox's still-lamented Profit and the new hubby of Dixie Chick Natalie Maines; Rae Dawn Chong, daughter of comedian Tommy Chong; and a mutt named Sam.
Pasdar's an eccentric anthropology prof, Chong's a skeptical shrink, and tonight they join forces for the first of their weekly searches into the mysterious ways of "divine intervention."
Sam plays Pasdar's independent dog, the Mole -- so named because the mole on his tummy might have been a miracle, too. It looks like the Virgin Mary.
The wags are already calling this Touched by an X-File, and there are traces of that potent partnership in this one.
"I ask one question -- 'What if?'," Pasdar's Declan Dunn explains his ongoing quest to Chong's naysaying Peggy Fowler. They meet at the hospital bedside of a boy who's been saved from the icy waters of a frozen lake. How that rescue happened is the mystery they team up to investigate.
"This is not a hobby," Declan assures Peggy. "I'm hoping to prove miracles are real."
So far, though, out of the 63 possible miracles he's investigated, only six are still unexplained. And the dean of Declan's college has about had it with his ace anthropology instructor. He wants Declan in the classroom, not on the road chasing miracles.
Declan's on-campus assistant, the no-nonsense Miranda (Alisen Down), is his voice of reason. He's just home from checking a statue in Florida that's suddenly crying tears of blood. Miranda gives him the bad news, "Cow's blood. Bummer."
But when the clinically drowned boy suddenly revives, with a tale of white light and a giant hand, Declan hears the call again and high-tails it to the hospital to get the back-from-the-dead details. Even Peggy, the hospital psychiatrist, is intrigued as each answer brings a new question.
There are plenty of twists and turns to keep you wondering. And both Declan and Peggy have sufficient reasons for believing -- or not believing -- to keep the characters interesting.
Mysterious Ways has a way of pulling you in.
Mysterious Ways, 7 p.m. tonight, NBC. (As of Aug. 22, it also airs 7 p.m. Tuesdays, PAX.) Grade: B+.