Unlocking the lost room's mysteries

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that in my television reviewing "career" thus far, I've looked at more programmes from Prime than any other network.

I remember the old Prime. It was insanely dull, despite the odd interesting documentary. But then the Aussies took over, and suddenly Prime became host to a cavalcade of just-left-of-mainstream shows. One good thing about the channel is it's willing to put shows on in primetime that may be buried at 11pm on Sunday if broadcast on one of the major networks.

New mini-series The Lost Room(9.30pm, Thursday) is a case in point - though whether it actually deserves to stay in primetime is still a matter for debate. It definitely has potential, but is often ham-fisted in its attempts to build a mounting sense of dread.

The first episode opened with your usual gambit of helicopter shots of a city at night while intensely ominous music let us know that something bad was about to go down.

A group of wild-eyed folk were meeting in a pawnshop to make a deal on an obviously quite important motel room key, which some mysterious chap is apparently willing to fork out a couple of million clams for.

But hark! The deal was interrupted by a very bad man, who turned up with a cabal of bodyguards and maniacally clicks a ballpoint pen (worry not, the significance of the pen is explained later). Luckily for the plot, pawnshop assistant Ignacio legged it with the key.

Enter our hero, a detective dad with the all-American name of Joe Miller (Six Feet Under's Peter Krause), who investigates the pawnshop with a torch - because we all learned from the movie Se7en that doing so adds atmosphere to an otherwise dull process.

There are two dead bodies - one of which is hanging upside down from the ceiling, which he appears to have been shot into somehow. Miller, utilising all his detective skills, surmised: "This doesn't make any sense."

Miller eventually caught up with Ignacio, but not for long - the cheeky devil had a funny habit of opening doors with that all-important key and then disappearing.

But before time he turned up on our hero's doorstep shot full of holes, clutching the key and wheezing "it opens every door! It opens every door!".

It sure did: Miller tried the key on his closet, only to open the door into a mysterious motel room. Not only that, it appeared that you could exit the room to wherever you please, whether that be a sunny beach or a crowded football stadium.

It got weirder: Miller came across a guy with an equally magical bus ticket - when touched by said mass-transit pass, the detective was magically whisked to a deserted road in the middle of New Mexico.

Of course, he found his way back home with the key, where he punched Bus Ticket Guy and made him explain what was going on. That turned Bus Ticket Guy into Long-Winded Exposition Guy, as he spilled the fact the key and the ticket were both objects from the motel room, and there were many more like them that did equally strange things - that pen we saw earlier, for example, had the impact of a cannon when folk were touched with it. There were theories as to what the deal with the room is. Apparently something terrible happened in it. You'll have to keep watching to find out what that something was. I'm not sure whether I will be, though.

The Lost Room certainly boasts a potentially intriguing premise, but it seems to be working so damn hard to make that premise intriguing and ominous that it comes across as kind of strained. However, it seems ripe for cult potential - no doubt many will be riveted to the screen, trying to unlock the secrets of the room.

At the very least, it's worth a second look.

- © Fairfax NZ News