I saw this got a lot of solid reviews so I figured I ought to watch it, but the premise didn't really grab me. FBI Training? Terrorist chasing? It just didn't really appeal to me. But I heard favorable references to it now and again, so finally I watched an episode.
Then I watched another episode. And another. And some more the next day.
Rather than the sort of military-cadet investigative procedural I vaguely expected, this is similar in approach to How to Get Away with Murder. Both show's first seasons zips back and forth between a chaotic present and a past that establishes the present, and both are wildly enamored of plot twists. The most notable differences are that Murder is flashier and that Quantico has an interesting way of foreshadowing from the future, in which characters in the present are continually referring to things that will, one assumes, happen eventually in the flashback sequences.
I loved Quantico for the first 8 or 9 episodes as it ran a rather Hitchcockian story of the accused on the run against the academy scenes, which offered an intriguingly pleasantly soapy mix of action, mystery, and sex.
And then, at the point where Hitchcock would have ended the story, 8 or 9 episodes in, the plot just ran out of steam for the reason so many series do; it needs to keep going because a continuing series is where the money is. And just like How to Get Away with Murder, everything became too complicated, too heavy with intricate but uninteresting stories, too much and yet not enough.
I kept watching for a while, but grew increasingly uninterested in the mess the show had become, and ten minutes into episode 15 I thought, I just don't care about these people or this endless story.
This could have been such an amazing mini-series. But the formula simply can't sustain past maybe 10 episodes.
Then I watched another episode. And another. And some more the next day.
Rather than the sort of military-cadet investigative procedural I vaguely expected, this is similar in approach to How to Get Away with Murder. Both show's first seasons zips back and forth between a chaotic present and a past that establishes the present, and both are wildly enamored of plot twists. The most notable differences are that Murder is flashier and that Quantico has an interesting way of foreshadowing from the future, in which characters in the present are continually referring to things that will, one assumes, happen eventually in the flashback sequences.
I loved Quantico for the first 8 or 9 episodes as it ran a rather Hitchcockian story of the accused on the run against the academy scenes, which offered an intriguingly pleasantly soapy mix of action, mystery, and sex.
And then, at the point where Hitchcock would have ended the story, 8 or 9 episodes in, the plot just ran out of steam for the reason so many series do; it needs to keep going because a continuing series is where the money is. And just like How to Get Away with Murder, everything became too complicated, too heavy with intricate but uninteresting stories, too much and yet not enough.
I kept watching for a while, but grew increasingly uninterested in the mess the show had become, and ten minutes into episode 15 I thought, I just don't care about these people or this endless story.
This could have been such an amazing mini-series. But the formula simply can't sustain past maybe 10 episodes.