Premiering September 22nd, Limitless is a crime procedural which follows Brian Finch. He discovers the power of the mysterious drug called NZT and is coerced into using his newfound drug-enhanced abilities to solve weekly cases for the FBI.
Limitless wastes no time introducing you to Brian's abilities and shows you exactly what he can do, but that's before you even know who he is and why he's got these enhanced abilities. The show does offer an explanation eventually and you'll know why Brian was chosen and how he came across this mysterious drug. The wait for that moment though is uneventful - made up of family dinners, workplace on-goings - and at times it became a little tedious.
Jake McDorman leads the ensemble and what a brilliant job he did in the pilot. He plays Brian Finch, a musician struggling to find his place in the world whilst also failing to impress his high standard family. Brian's between jobs and his life goes from bad to worse when his father - one of the few members of his family that truly cares - falls ill, with doctors struggling to diagnose the problem.
Jennifer Carpenter plays Rebecca. Jennifer is known for her roles as detectives in other shows and she doesn't differ from that in Limitless. She plays a detective who takes a liking to Brian after heavily pursuing him for a crime he didn't commit. She sees him and his new enhanced abilities as an asset to the force, but her superiors think otherwise and see him as a threat. She ignores them and takes on board everything Brian tells her and uses his information to help catch the real criminal. Jennifer, unfortunately, doesn't impress and her acting was bland and familiar, and to make things worse, her character Rebecca is lacking originality and felt like your typical detective.
Bradley Cooper also stepped back into his role as Eddie Morra. Bradley's role in the show is a recurring one and after the pilot you'll have a better understanding of how he'll be featured and what his role will be. During the pilot, Eddie was essentially the drugs backstory, and it offers viewers who aren't familiar with the film a little insight into how it works. However, Bradley's role is set to be a limited one even when you factor in his recurring status. I can't be sure, but going by the pilot, bringing him back for several episodes is going to be a huge waste if he's just going to be used as a pit stop for Brian - which is what the pilot hinted at.
As for the rest of the cast; there is a ton of supporting cast from Hill Harper as Boyle to Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as Nasreen Awad. The supporting cast who play other detectives were featured so little they might as well not have been in it. The pilot was mainly focused on Brian - learning about his new abilities and how to use them - whilst also having to deal with some family issues in between. The pilot does set up future episodes with a well thought out foundation for the show, but it's going to be another cop procedural, which I don't think will be that appealing to viewers.
Summary
Limitless is a mediocre show with an interesting concept. The show sets the future episodes up nicely, but the show sets everything up to appear as a typical procedural by the end. Even though it's a pilot, Limitless could have introduced a small villain in the closing minutes - all they did was hint that there might be some serialized elements. Then, the show would have been about more than just cases of the week. That would have made things more interesting. Sadly though, Limitless is a one stop show that is your average procedural with the only notable difference from others being the NZT drug. Bradley and Jake were fantastic, but the rest of the cast were lacklustre. Family dinners and constant meetings were tedious and became bothersome very quickly. The show can be great if it cuts back on the constant pit stops, and focuses more on the cases. 6.5/10
As always, thank you for reading! You can catch the premiere of Limitless September 22nd at 10pm on CBS.
