What I’m Watching: TV Series Returning Next Year (part two)

The Dead Zone

It may have been the first of what is now common cable programming protocol: The summer series. Based loosely on the Stephen King novel of the same name, Johnny Smith (played deftly by former brat-packer Anthony Michael Hall) survives a near-fatal car accident but just barely. He’s in a coma for six years. In the meantime, his fiancé marries the town sheriff and they’re raising Johnny’s son that she had while he was in the coma. When Johnny wakes up, he discovers that he can read a person’s future by touching them.

Lori and I both like The Dead Zone, which apparently has been picked up for a sixth season. The sci-fi stuff is cool, but the core success of this show is in the characters and they’re dynamics. I won’t get into all of them but some of them started out seemingly as bad guys and have shifted. Agendas clash. And then there’s the vision of Armageddon that Johnny had when he first touched sleazy politician Greg Stillson (played with ultimate abandon by Sean Patrick Flannery, who I loved as Young Indiana Jones).

So check out The Dead Zone on USA (check local listings for times). Repeats are abundant right now, but a sixth season has been promised.