Toni Collette gives this initially gripping drama a reason to keep watching, but the implausible plotting wears away its suspense. Fifteen episodes demand more convincing characters than the series supplies.
Hostages begins with enough tension to make its weaknesses seem worth overlooking. The performances give the immediate danger weight, and the opening has the brisk appeal of a thriller that knows how to get our attention. Keeping it proves harder: the plotting becomes difficult to believe, while the characters offer too little reason to forgive it. There is an arresting start here, but not enough to recommend the series that follows.
Toni Collette, playing Ellen Sanders, is the strongest reason to persist. Her performance lends seriousness to material that needs somebody to make its immediate pressures feel credible. Dylan McDermott, as Agent Duncan Carlisle, helps establish the early suspense, although the central performances cannot provide all the variation the drama requires. The problem is how much depends on the actors persuading us to accept what the writing puts before them.
We were frustrated by the plotting because its implausible turns repeatedly demand patience without providing enough character development in return. A thriller can get away with considerable improbability when a decision tells us something interesting about the person making it. Here, too often, the development seems to exist to keep the suspense going. Once that becomes noticeable, another complication gives us a reason to question the story rather than fear what might happen within it.
The writing credits include Nick Santora, Joshua Allen, Alon Aranya and Jeffrey Nachmanoff, and the central difficulty is sustaining the initial pressure. Fifteen episodes, with a listed running time of 42 minutes, leave substantial space for the people involved to become more interesting. Yet the character drama too often feels insufficiently earned. The series needs those quieter reasons to care, particularly when the mechanics of its plot are already asking for indulgence.
Directors Jeffrey Nachmanoff, Phil Abraham and SJ Clarkson work within a series whose opening establishes a demanding pace. That early urgency is a virtue, and it explains why the programme can briefly seem more persuasive than its story warrants. But pace cannot make an unlikely development convincing by itself. The longer the drama continues, the more its suspense depends on our accepting choices that the characterisation has not adequately supported.
Against the basic requirements of a sustained television thriller, this is a consequential weakness. An effective opening can make us curious about almost anyone; subsequent episodes have to reward that curiosity with more than further trouble. Hostages has the performers to suggest a stronger drama, and there are stretches when their conviction helps. It does not give them consistently credible material, or enough room for the people they play to acquire depth.
The opening’s admirers have a fair point: its tension is immediate, and Toni Collette makes attention feel worthwhile. Our reservation is about the commitment that follows, not the ability to construct an enticing beginning. For anyone choosing a series rather than sampling a pilot, that distinction matters. Try the opening for the performances, but do not mistake a strong first impression for a reason to commit to fifteen episodes.
