- Network: CBS
- Series Premiere Date: Sep 23, 2013
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Critic Reviews
- Critic score
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- By date
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Other than a few other corny ideas (the whole Presidential assassination trope is a little cliché), Hostages delivers a compelling plot with enough tension to keep viewers interested for 45 minutes.
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Hostages unfolds with the crisp efficiency of a humorless event planner checking tasks off a list.
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Sanders' husband (Tate Donovan) and teenaged kids are each shielding their own secrets, uncovered by Carlisle and his crew--and covered up by them as well. Unfortunately, they're fairly pedestrian.
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While the pacing is solid and the direction is competent, nothing rises above the average. The pilot is too tasteful to be intense, and too silly to be affecting. It’s middlebrow to the bone.
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Throughout the pilot, you’ll wonder why this couldn’t all be handled in a mediocre two-hour action movie.
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By pilot's end, the tension level is more "Parenthood" than "Homeland."
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Hostages feels as if it's impulsively running on autopilot, periodically checking off boxes on a laundry list of genre clichés.
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The series does hint at Carlisle's motivation, and maybe the show will get more interesting once his reasons for wanting the president dead are revealed, but the pilot doesn't exactly demand viewers tune in for episode two.
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It is to say that this mimicking is just that, as if the creators here have watched those shows ["24" and "Homeland"], but have no original inspiration, and instead think that plot twists in and of themselves make a drama bracing.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 55 out of 102
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Mixed: 23 out of 102
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Negative: 24 out of 102
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Oct 4, 2013
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Sep 24, 2013
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Jan 12, 2014