LOST ROOM (MINI-SERIES WIDESCREEN) (2006)

Lost Room (Mini-series Widescreen) (2006)

Actors: Peter Krause, Kevin Pollak, Julianna Margulies, Dennis Christopher, Ewen Bremner
Directors: Craig R. Baxley, Michael W. Watkins

Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC, Widescreen
Region: 1 (U.S. and Canada only)
Number of discs: 2
Run Time: 284 minutes

Movie: * * * ½
Disc: * *

The “made for the Sci-Fi Channel” tag usually means it’s rubbish. Fortunately this is not the case with The Lost Room, a supernatural science fiction mini-series that boasts some clever and inventive writing of the sort one might have expected of Stephen King in his heyday.

A policeman investigating a bizarre murder comes across a key that gains one access to what can only be described as an intra-dimensional motel room through which one can in turn travel to anywhere in the world. The keys however aren’t the only objects from the motel room with supernatural powers. In fact there are hundreds of them — anything from an innocuous bus ticket which teleports whoever touches it to a small town in New Mexico to a pair of glasses that prevents any form of combustion from happening. Not quite useful if you’re a mechanic but rather handy when someone puts a loaded to your forehead (it won’t go off).

Soon the cop (played by a laidback and likeable Peter Krause) becomes involved in a decades-old plot involving secret societies obsessed with collecting the various objects found in the motel room. Things take a turn for the worse when his small daughter (Elle Fanning, sister of Dakota) disappears in the room and the Krause character must find some way of getting her back . . .

The Stephen King analogy isn’t a stretch. The Lost Room is blessed with a sharp premise and setup, but like many Stephen King stories the series doesn’t exactly know how to wind things up and the series’ ending comes across as abrupt - maybe because it is because one simply wanted more. But when one’s only complaint about a TV mini-series is that one wants more when it is finished one knows that The Lost Room is destined to become a sci-fi fan favorite. Pity though it was never expanded into a full series as it could easily have become a new Lost or X-Files . . .

THE DISCS: It is a bit of a mystery that this DVD would be plagued by inexplicable image interlacing problems and a glitchy menu. In this day and age one simply expects better from a major home entertainment outfit such as Lion’s Gate. The discs’ defects don’t distract from one’s enjoyment much (that menu glitch is annoying though). Still, one would have expected more stringent quality control.

WORTH IT? The Lost Room is simply good story-telling: the premise is a 100% original; the acting is good (except perhaps for Fanning); the dialogue fresh and the show moves along at a decent clip. Also unexpected are some nice situational humor. Boasting an expansive back-story and some decent character development, The Lost Room could easily have been stretched out to a full TV series.

RECOMMENDATION: Great min-series, disappointing disc. Still, sci-fi fans — don’t be put off by the Stephen King analogy as the show downplays its horror elements — should check it out as it boasts the freshest premise for a TV show in simply years . . .