Please, add The Hunting Party to your watchlist

Manifest’s Melissa Roxburgh makes her long-awaited—by me—return to broadcast television with NBC’s The Hunting Party, which is a blast (no pun intended), especially for those who loved the dark, twisted delights of Criminal Minds’s early years. Roxburgh heads the cast as disgraced former FBI agent Bex Henderson, who is stuck working security at a casino and using her profiling skills to catch cheaters until a top-secret, underground prison explodes, unleashing many of the world’s most notorious and violent criminals back onto an unsuspecting public that believes many/all of them to be death. Thus, the powers that be seek her out to help hunt these individuals down… hopefully before they make their next kills.

Others on the task force include Shane Florence (Josh McKenzie), a former military man recruited to be a guard at the Pit, who joins due to his intimate knowledge of some of the prisoners and his presence on-site when the bomb exploded. He may potentially be a love interest for Bex down the line, though he seems to be harboring a few secrets. Rounding out the in-field trio is tight-lipped CIA operative and technical team leader Jacob Hassani (Patrick Sabongui) who, honestly, hasn’t made much of an impression aside from his attentiveness as a father to his off-screen children. In the second episode, which airs on February 10, Sara Garcia debuts as Jennifer Morales, the team’s tech specialist and an admirer of Bex’s top-notch profiling abilities.

As of writing this, I’ve only watched two episodes, but this show feels like it could be something special. It may not be the most original idea, but honestly, what’s on the air now that is? The mishmash of tropes and elements from other beloved shows with unique adjustments thrown in still creates an intriguing and highly entertaining story, which is then built upon with excellent writing that seeks to take an unexpected path forward and a strong cast. In both episodes, there are a couple of great twists (and a couple that are a bit predictable, but still good) in the story that help the series stand out and offer strong promises of what to expect moving forward. I’d even go out on a limb to say this is one of the stronger pilot episodes I’ve watched in recent years.

While it airs on a different network, The Hunting Party is closely akin to Tracker on CBS. It takes a few characters around the country to investigate while it’s filmed in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia, and surrounding areas. It also feels heavily inspired by Criminal Minds. We have profilers who worked for the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit and use their abilities to identify and stop serial killers. Hell, there’s even a private jet for this task force to use for cross-country travel. However, the most appealing aspect is also where it seems to differ most from the long-running series. The writing of Criminal Minds, like most procedurals and the extended television genre of copaganda, favors a black-or-white, good-or-evil outlook on both life and the job. Here, the series seems to be embracing the grey area (albeit it is still early, but here’s hoping). For instance, we don’t know exactly why Bex was pushed out of the FBI but the pilot episode reveals her former partner and mentor, Oliver Odell (Nick Wechsler), crossed a line with a suspect while they were searching for a missing girl—something Bex is still struggling to wrap her head around, but admittedly understands to an extent—and it’s likely connected to Bex’s fall from grace.

Obviously, it’s still very early—and perhaps I may be slightly blinded by my affinity for Roxburgh as a die-hard, day-one Manifest fan—but there’s a significant amount of potential here already and the story leaves you fully engrossed. It has it all: promising characters, both exciting and complicated relationships (old and new), weekly cases/killers to explore, and overarching mysteries (or conspiracies) regarding (spoiler alert!) who planted the bomb and what exactly the government has been doing to the prisoners in the Pit for decades. Plus, due to the latter, the escapees aren’t following their usual patterns and behaviors, presenting unique challenges for Bex each week as she must start with the old profile and build a new one based on their recent actions and limited information of the goings-on in the Pit, both because the government is determined to keep everything a secret and because the records were destroyed in the attack.

In short, add The Hunting Party to your watchlist. The first episode is streaming on Peacock now. We’re off to such a promising start already, and there are surely only improvements down the line after this world and these characters have been fully established.

On another note, I recently watched the late, great Marvel’s Agent Carter again. It was striking how timely the story felt, despite airing in 2015-16 and being set in the late ‘40s, given the current direction of this country and the rising return of misogynistic and bigoted beliefs and legislation under the guise of “traditionalism.” I wrote about it for Paste Magazine, and if you’d like to read the piece, click on this link.