Good shows aren’t hard to find in a television landscape consisting of hundreds of shows, but truly extraordinary ones are a dime in a dozen. They only happen when the stars align perfectly to birth an extraordinary work of art.
Frequency is one of those special few that came together serendipitously to create a masterpiece. This pilot was one of the best I’ve had the pleasure to watch this season. From the first moment to the last, it is captivating which is a major testament to the extremely smart writers who gifted an amazing story to powerful performers. The majority of the weight of the pilot rested on the sturdy shoulders of Peyton List who took Raimy Sullivan on an incredible journey from a non-believer to a believer desperate to save her father. The show also heavily relied on Riley Smith (Frank Sullivan) and Mekhi Phifer (Satch) to share part of the burden with List. Smith has indescribable chemistry with List which allows the bond between their characters to hit hard despite the fact they only share brief moments together in flashbacks. The fact that these two are longtime friends will certainly help them capture the unique bond between their characters. While the story revolves around them, Phifer’s character is the key for the audience to experience both times which is a critical role in order to merge the two timelines and Phifer doesn’t disappoint. This causes him the extra burden of traversing two different decades which he does with expert ease as he shows how time has changed Satch. The fatherly tendencies he has towards Raimy were fun to see explored in the premiere, but I’m really interested to see the friendship between him and Frank explored more throughout the season. These three are a fierce trio who will make this show and all its complexities work.
The series began in the middle of the first episode before proceeding to go back and fill in some blanks. I feel as though this will be a common storytelling technique the writers will use which is fine by me because it works well within the context of this show. Prior to this series launching many people wondered how this premise could sustain a series for one season let alone multiple seasons. It was a concern that I also had, but that fear was quickly squashed as I watched the writers build a fantastically intricate world to house these characters. This is going to be a show where the audience has to pay attention in order to keep up with all the time shifts. I’ve heard many people call this a time traveling show but it really isn’t. It bends time thanks to the butterfly effect, but no characters every actually travel through time. History is changed and events altered thanks to the characters being able to communicate through time, but to me, that still doesn’t qualify it as a time traveling show. To me a time traveling show is more like
12 Monkeys where characters physically end up in a different time using some sort of device.
Frequency is something special and unique within the genre. It bends time in ways that television rarely ever tries to tackle on a large scale because of how complicated a story like this is. It’s likely that the characters and the audience will need a roadmap to keep up with all the time shifts, but at least it will keep the audience actively invested in the show.
With all the changes it’s almost a guarantee that Raimy’s mind is going to be spinning especially since she is privy to all the changes going on around her. One of my big hopes is that as the series sets up its mythology they will explain how Raimy and her father are so special and what allows their particular ham radio to permit them to communicate across time. It is this unique part of the story that will allow this series to have an indefinite amount of stories to tell. Father and daughter will be working across time to fix things, more specifically, to fix the fact that their actions cost them both Julie (Devin Kelley). It is obvious that Frank loved his wife even after their marriage broke apart. Once he finds out from Raimy that Julie was murdered because they saved him I can only imagine the anguish that will cost him. What I’m going to be curious to see is if Frank will be as aware of the changes going on as Raimy is. Because if that is the case he’ll to have to be dealing with two dueling realities one where he lost his family and one where his wife was taken from him. The potential for profound emotional stress to be placed on these characters opens many avenues for the writers to challenge these performers. If the premiere is anything to go by this cast is more than capable of handling the most extreme of scenarios that these writers can throw at them.
Before I saw the premiere I had one huge concern, and that was regarding the performers who were going to have to perform their characters at two different ages. The main responsibility of that, for now at least, falls on Anthony Ruivivar, Kelley and Phifer and to a much smaller degree Smith. They have to have an incredible grasp on their characters to know how they are in the past and to understand how to portray them in the present day to show how events in their lives have changed them. Kelley was the one that I was most concerned about, and not really because I didn’t think she could do it, but because I wasn’t sure that the makeup team could realistically age her to look like List’s mother when in fact the two actresses are the same age. My fears were unwarranted because the moment Raimy came into her mom’s house and they embraced Kelley exuded a very maternal energy towards List that sold their characters as mother and daughter. That was a very simple scene, but it really helped to convey the love between them. It was very important to allow the audience to see their bond in order to sell the tragic ending where Julie was ripped away from her daughter. It’s obvious that saving her mom is going to be a big driving point for Raimy as well as her dad. In order to have any chance of saving her in the past Raimy will have to work the cold case in the present while she feeds her dad the details he needs to protect her in the past. This is the key that gives this season purpose allowing everything to tie together. I think this is going to be the kind of show that you have to watch from the beginning to truly appreciate the complexities of the overarching story. It’s obvious that events from each episode will have a direct impact on future ones.
While the loss of Julie was one of the biggest changes to the timeline there was yet another shock to Raimy in the fact that she lost Daniel (Daniel Lawrence), the love of her life. She didn’t lose him in the same tragic way she did her mom, but it was still a massive loss to her. In her mind he loved her one moment then in the next he knew her as nothing more than a stranger. She went from having a huge support system to being down to just Satch and Gordo (Lenny Jacobson). Granted, those are two good guys for her to have on her side, but the fact that in this new timeline she’s lost both her parents and the man she loved is a huge blow. I’m wondering how long it will take for her to let Gordo in on the whole situation. I’m sure he’ll have some questions for her after that random round of rambling she subjected him to in her confusion. I think for him to remain a relevant character and really fit into the full dynamic of the show he’ll have to be let in on things relatively early on. Otherwise, Gordo runs the risk of becoming one of those secondary characters that writers struggle with. Given the fact that he’s Raimy’s lifelong best friend it would make sense for her to explain everything to him and enlist his help. I just hope he is as supportive and understanding as Daniel was when Raimy initially told him.
Daniel is an interesting character and the writers could do a lot of things with him. He’s kind of a wild card in terms of how he is going to play into the whole overarching storyline. As the premiere left it, Daniel doesn’t even know Raimy, but any little shift in the timeline could change their dynamic. The odds are much greater for him to experience the strongest fundamental changes in Raimy’s life versus characters like Gordo or Satch who have basically known Raimy for most of her life. Even before the point of divergence in the timelines, when Frank was saved, they were a part of her life. Daniel showed up in the picture much later making him the character the writers have the most liberties with. It’s going to be truly fascinating to watch how he changes throughout the season.
This premiere had a lot of poignant moments, but perhaps the most powerful occurred when Raimy thought she was too late to give her father the information he needed to survive the setup. The editing was precise allowing the powerful performances of List and Smith to shine as they matched each other point for point through an emotional array that saw them transition from anxiousness to terror to stunned shock in the span of mere seconds. This scene right here is what proves that this show has all the right people doing the right work to create a visual masterpiece. A scene like this can’t exist unless everyone involved is going above and beyond. From the performers to the director to the writer to everyone behind the scenes this is the epitome of why this show is special. This was a scene that on paper had to seem quite convoluted and complicated yet what hit our screens was nothing short of perfect. It all led into what I have to call an editing work of art as quick snippets of new memories flooded through Raimy. The editor brilliantly flashed snippets of new memories over Raimy allowing the sequence to cut back to her at the perfect moments showing List exquisitely capturing the raw emotion flooding through Raimy. It was truly stunning to watch that sequence play out.
There were a lot of beautiful scenes, but that one takes the award for being the best. A close second would have to be the moment where Raimy was digging around in the backyard after seeing the flag her dad burned into the radio. She was desperate to definitively confirm that she was indeed talking to her dad. She is desperate to get to the proof hiding in the muddy ground that she won’t even let a torrential downpour stop her from getting to it. List is a very in the moment performer allowing whatever character she is playing to always shine through. When she is acting you’re not looking at Peyton List the actress, but instead, you’re watching an intimate moment in the life of Raimy Sullivan. She makes her characters feel real and that is a quality that was necessary to make Raimy work. Raimy is the emotional core of the story so to see her grapple with all these conflicting emotions throughout the premiere was exactly what was required to draw the audience in.
Even through Raimy is the emotional core, and the Sullivan family the focus, there is a lot more going on to help fuel the stakes. Through her brilliant detective skills, Raimy discovered that Stan Moreno (Anthony Ruivivar) is the one who led to her father being setup and ultimately murdered. More accurately, as the audience knows, he ordered the whole situation that got Frank killed in the first place. Given that Moreno now holds a very high ranking within the force it is a given that they will clash throughout the season. It’s possible he could be this series’ version of a big bad, but I think he’ll end up being one small pawn in the chessboard of some bigger bad. It would be too easy for the series to let Raimy have all the answers in the premiere, so while I think he’ll cause major trouble for her I don’t think he’ll be the only foe she’ll have to deal with. I’m sure that Moreno wasn’t happy that Frank survived that deal alive and wouldn’t put it past him to have tried to silence him once and for all. We don’t know all the details regarding what caused Frank’s accident that killed him in this new timeline but I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised it is revealed that there were outside factors that cost Frank his life. Moreno and his goons are yet another aspect of this whole complicated puzzle that Frank and Raimy are going to have to deal with to find a way to stop the Nightingale killer and save Julie. It is certainly a twisted web, but one that I think they are more than capable of unraveling given the stakes at hand.
is a supernaturally driven procedural yet at its most primal state, it is a story about a family. The Sullivan’s for all their issues have a profound love for one another. It is their love mixed with the bonds they’ve made that give the show its emotional stakes for the audience to connect with. Now that the premise is set the series needs to start crafting the mythology that will help viewers understand the mechanics of this whole situation Frank and Raimy have found themselves in. What the series does in these next few episodes is critical to its success. The potential for success is high making the stakes for this creative team extremely high. They have the right cast, the right writers, the right behind the scenes team, so to falter after this phenomenal series premiere would be devastating. I don’t think it’ll happen, I certainly hope it doesn’t, but only time will tell if the series can keep delivering this level of high-quality work every week. If it does then this could prove to be a very successful series for the CW. The ending launched the series as the race begins to forge a present where Raimy doesn't have to sacrifice one parent for the other. The premiere hit all the right points crafting a tightly wound story that perfectly launched this series making this one of the best series premieres I’ve had the pleasure of watching in a very long time.
Be sure to not miss the next all new episode next
Wednesday, October 12th at 9/8C on the CW.
Hit the comments with your thoughts about this episode. Will you be continuing on with the series? What your favorite parts? Do you enjoy the complexities of the series? What are you hoping will happen this season?
About the Author - Aimee Hicks
Aimee works for a newspaper in North Carolina and has a BA in Broadcasting and Cinema. She has been a TV lover since before she really understood what TV was and has a passion for analyzing performances and theorizing what may happen on her favorite shows. Her interest in television covers just about every genre, but her first love is the sci-fi/fantasy genre. For the 2016/2017 season she will be reviewing Chesapeake Shores, Dark Matter, Frequency, Gilmore Girls, Jessica Jones, Lucifer, and Orphan Black. She will also be handling the Best Scene Polls for Supergirl and previewing several new and returning shows. She also oversees the popular SpoilerTV feature, Performers of the Month (#POTM) which highlights the most outstanding actor and actress from each month. You can email her at aimee@spoilertv.com.
