"Nowhere Man's" paranoia strikes deep
By JOYCE MILLMANLike its spiritual cousin The X-Files, UPN's tricky little thriller, Nowhere Man (Mondays, 9 p.m, check local listings), is a pop culture bubble floating up from the murky depths of our collective paranoia.
Maybe it's the approaching end of the millennium, maybe it's the result of political and social grievances gone unaddressed for too long (or maybe it's something They put in the water!), but people are a little, you know, crazy these days. We're living in the Gray '90s, where there's a foggy conspiracy theory for every taste. Alien abductions, O.J.'s frameup, Waco, the death of Vincent Foster--yeah, we're just eatin' 'em up.
Fox's X-Files, of course, was the first TV series to plug into this free-floating paranoia, into the reality that, after years of true or imagined government betrayals, Americans are ready to believe anything, as long as it's sinister. The greatness of The X-Files is that it's been able to offer both "extreme possibilities" like flukeworm/human mutants and relatively plausible theories about government coverups of alien visitations without straying into hysteria. Through its deadpan humor, The X-Files distances itself from the dangerous dead-seriousness of some conspiracy buffs; it acknowledges that you don't have to be a nutjob to appreciate a good crackpot theory and, well, who among us hasn't enjoyed an occasional peek at the Weekly World News?
The prospect of launching another X-Files was surely on the minds of UPN execs when Nowhere Man premiered last August. And, so far, the show seems on the proper trajectory -- good reviews, cult following, slow-building media buzz. Where it parts company from The X-Files is this: It's even more paranoid.
The noirish action of Nowhere Man may or may not be taking place entirely in the mind of its hero, Thomas Veil (Bruce Greenwood), a photojournalist specializing in stark, brutal war shots. In the first episode, Veil attends a showing of his work, which includes "Hidden Agenda,'' a disturbing photo of American military personnel apparently presiding over an execution in an unnamed Third World country. ""Hidden Agenda'' will become the show's McGuffin (or, for you kids out there, the show's Pulp Fiction briefcase).
Veil goes to dinner with his wife and comes back from the men's room to find their table empty and himself a nonentity. Old friends don't know him. His ATM card doesn't work. His wife is married to some other guy claiming to be Tom Veil. You get the picture.
Next page: Mysterious, cigar-smoking CIA types
