American Odyssey

American Odyssey is rooted in current events, which provides immediate credibility to the series. But like “Homeland,” “Person of Interest” and other shows, it also makes effective use of the post-9/11 air of wariness that wafts through American society. Conspiracy buffs will be in heaven watching American Odyssey, but the rest of us will just be completely hooked.

American Odyssey is very much its own creation: clever, exciting, colorful without being self-consciously so. Most important, it is only occasionally ridiculous in the way conspiracy thrillers inevitably are.

Peter Facinelli (plays a former U.S. attorney and Jake Robinson an activist who are also getting dangerously close to the secret that threatens Sgt. Ballard, though it's Friel and Omar Ghazaoui, the young Moroccan playing her traveling companion, who are most responsible for making American Odyssey stand out from the conspiracy crowd.

American Odyssey is equal parts ambitious and frustrating.

American Odyssey has one gripping tale to tell. The problem is, there are three tales embedded in its framework, which includes familiar elements--the tension of “24” and the intrigue of “Homeland”--that add up to something less than the sum of its parts.

American Odyssey feels strained, tired and devoid of nuance, related less to the disenchantment associated with what’s happening today than the paranoid political thrillers of the 1970s. Nor does the series gain strength over four subsequent episodes

There's perhaps an outside chance that NBC's American Odyssey might not seem quite as impenetrably dull had we not already seen--or ignored--a hundred similar tales of terrorist conspiracies and government coverups. But we have and it does, and there's really no coming back from that.