Wayward Pines - Don't Discuss Your Life Before

"Nice face."
"Back at ya."

Ethan Burke is determined to leave Wayward Pines, and despite the opposition of Sheriff Pope, finds an ally in Beverly, who is still pretty spooked to learn that it is 2014. She helps him to dig a tracking chip out of his arm and he finds Bill Evans' escape map. They intend to abscond after a meal with Ethan's weirdly aged ex-partner Kate and her husband, but when Beverly slips up and mentions her life before Pines, all the phones in town ring and they find themselves hunted. Beverly is captured, and Ethan can only watch as Pope cuts her throat.

Two episodes in, and Wayward Pines is suffering from comparison to the book and the transition from eerie weird fiction to rather more overt conspiracy. The rules are posted in public places and intoned at the 'reckoning', which is neither as tense and terrifying as the book's fete - in which the entire town hunts Ethan and Beverly with machetes and kitchen knives - nor as creepy in its climax; Pope's dramatic execution replacing the corporate act of murder which binds the book's community in their shame and secrecy. The pacing is also significantly different, and again loses much of the tension through its more relaxed structure. As a side note, the network-mandated language restrictions make Nurse Pam's outbursts much more cutesy. Referring to a hefty needle as a 'bad boy' has less punch than calling it a motherfucker.

Unfortunately, these comparisons make it hard for me to judge the series as its own thing. It seems to have done very well for itself, so it must have an appeal by its own lights, but so many of the changes throw up plot holes for me. If the town is held together by constant fear, how come they all look so happy? And how come they all go along with it so jolly? There are other niggles that don't quite sit right, but although I'm running behind, I'll discuss them as they become not spoilers for the point in the series.