In 1944, an alien aircraft crashed in the Brooks Mountain Range, and the U.S. government quickly collected the 97 survivors, detaining them at the Mount Inostranka Facility in Alaska, where they have been studied for the past 66 years. While appearing human on the outside, they have hardly aged in nearly 7 decades. Their DNA only differs from humans by less than 1%, but this is still a significant amount—chimps only differ from humans by 2%. The leader of these people, Sophia Maguire (Laura Innes, ER), has not been forthcoming with any information as to where this group is from, why they are here, and what they want. The government suspects that there are more survivors that fled the wreckage, and that these others have assimilated into the general population, some taking up powerful positions. Besides a DNA test, there’s no way to know.

As the series opens, recently-elected U.S. president Elias Martinez (Blair Underwood, L.A. Law) has just learned about the Alaska facility, and plans to go public with the information, and set the detainees free. However, somone doesn’t want him talking, and during a failed assassination attempt, he witnesses something unexplainable, and realizes that members of his own government have been keeping some pertinent information about the Inostranka detainees from him. He is constantly butting heads with National Intelligence Director Blake Sterling (Željko Ivanek, Madam Secretary), who will seemingly stop at nothing to protect these secrets. And Vice President Raymond Jarvis (Bill Smitrovich, Life Goes On), who believes he should be president, also doesn’t agree with the Martinez’s plan of action. Meanwhile, software engineer Sean Walker (Jason Ritter, Raising Dion) is on a cruise with his girlfriend Leila (Sarah Roemer), and plans to propose. However, after the couple enjoys a night of drinking with new cruise friends Vicky Roberts (Taylor Cole, The Originals) and her boyfriend, things start to go wrong. Leila is kidnapped, and Sean is framed with murder. The kidnappers have made it look like Leila and Sean were never even on the cruise. Sean’s not sure what’s going on or why he’s being targeted, but whomever orchestrated this has powerful resources and connections, and even managed to convince Leila’s father Michael (Scott Patterson, Gilmore Girls) to potentially crash a plane into the President in exchange for his daughter’s return. Sean is determined to find and rescue Leila, and prove his own innocence. However, he finds himself swept into a much larger conspiracy surrounding the secret Alaskan facility and the people being detained there, and someone doesn’t want him talking. What unravels is a complex and twisty tale, with the highest offices of the U.S. government, the FBI and the CIA, each deploying their own deadly forces to protect their own interests regarding the Alaska incident. At the same time, Sophia’s former second in command, Thomas (Clifton Collins Jr., Westworld), is amassing his own army of “sleepers”—survivors of the 1944 crash who weren’t captured by the government—as they prepare to enact a plan that have patiently plotting for 66 years—an event that could ultimately lead to the end of humanity as we know it.

When ABC’s Lost came to an end in 2010, everyone was looking for the next big high concept sci-fi/mystery series. NBC was hoping to win over audiences with its new series The Event. However, the show was ultimately canceled after just one season. I really enjoyed this series. It is fast-paced and action-packed, with a very twisty story that keeps you engaged and guessing. Each episode usually ends in some big reveal or cliffhanger, making you wonder and anxious to see what’s going to happen next. While the series introduces a lot of questions and mysteries in the pilot, an even more along the way, the writers generally do a nice job of addressing these in a timely manner, rather than dragging them out for an entire season or series. There’s also the ongoing question of which of these characters could actually be a sleeper but hasn’t been revealed yet—which leads to some surprising reveals throughout the season. While I enjoyed the show overall, it unfortunately does end on a huge cliffhanger—one that I would have loved to have seen explored in another season or even resolved with a made-for-TV movie, but as we know, that never happened.

For the the first third of the season, the series is constantly jumping back and forth in time, telling different P.O.V.s of the same events using flashbacks that could be hours, days, months or even years before the previous scene. I thought this method of storytelling was really interesting and ultimately worked, forming this unique intricate puzzle. However, many viewers found this device to be overly-complicated, jarring, and requiring too much effort and patience. The flashback mechanism was first retooled after the fifth episode, and the storytelling became more linear, with minimal flashbacks. And after some major retooling of the series during the show’s extended mid-season hiatus following episode 10, the flashbacks were completely abandoned. While I think the show works either way, I did kind of miss that more complex structure of the first 5 episodes.

The Event features an amazing cast filled with so many recognizable TV character actors. The series has a globe-hopping, cinematic feel to it, and these actors really get to shine, especially Ritter and Innes. Some of the other actors not already mentioned above include Ian Anthony Dale (Hawaii Five-0) as CIA operative Simon Lee, Lisa Vidal (Being Mary Jane) as First Lady Christina Martinez, and Hal Holbrook as the mysterious James Dempsey.

The Event was previously released on DVD back in 2011 by Universal, but finally makes its way onto Blu-ray for the first time in the U.S. thanks to Mill Creek Entertainment (it was previously released on region-free Blu-ray in the UK). Mill Creek’s Blu-ray presentation is pretty solid, featuring a picture that is primarily clean and clear with a strong level of detail throughout. There is the occasional scene that shows some compression artifacting—such as when we see the bright blue sky above Sean and Leila’s cruise ship in the pilot, or some of the darker scenes. However, these were the exceptions and not the general picture quality. The audio track is great, providing clear dialogue throughout, and making some excellent use of the surround channel to provide an immersive experience. This is especially noticeable in scenes involving the portals/wormholes, or other major events caused by the extraterrestrials.

Mill Creek’s release ports over nearly all of the bonus material from the previous DVD release, just leaving off a photo gallery and possibly some episode recaps (they are there for most episodes). There is a lot of great bonus material, including over an hour of deleted scenes, over 40 minutes of behind-the-scenes featurettes, and commentaries on 6 episodes. The series’ 22 episodes are spread across 5 discs, which are placed in trays in a slightly-thicker HD keepcase. Discs are labeled with the titles of the episodes they contain and any bonus material. Each disc offers episode and subtitle selection as well as a Play All option.

What’s Included:

Episodes: (15:26:03)

• All 22 episodes of the TV series spread across 5 discs:
  Disc 1 (2:50:22): “I Haven’t Told You Everything”, “To Keep Us Safe”, “Protect Them from the Truth”, “A Matter of Life and Death”
  Disc 2 (3:32:43): “Casualties of War”, “Loyalty”, “I Know Who You Are”, “For the Good of Our Country”, “Your World to Take”
  Disc 3 (2:43:03): “Everything Will Change”, “And Then There Were More”, “Inostranka”, “Turnabout”
  Disc 4 (3:31:10): “A Message Back”, “Face Off”, “You Bury Other Things Too”, “Cut Off the Head”, “Strain”
  Disc 5 (2:48:45): “Us or Them”, “One Will Live, One Will Die”, “The Beginning of the End”, “Arrival”
• 1080p / Widescreen 1.78:1
• Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
• Subtitles: English

Extras :

• Magic Behind The Event‘s Special Effects (8:05)
  Creator/co-executive producer Nick Wauters joins visual effects editor Tony Safarik & visual effects supervisor Victor Scalise in the editing room at Stargate Studios to see how effects were added to various scenes. The scenes include two from the pilot—first where a car chases down a plane on the runway, then the plane disappearing into a wormhole over the Presidential retreat—as well as a scene from the second episode where the plane is coming out of the wormhole.
• Dr. Dempsey Alternate Story (11:32)
  Showrunner Evan Katz gives an introduction to this collection of deleted scenes from episode 10 (“And Then There Were More”) that would have given a different backstory for Mr. Dempsey (“Hal Holbrook”) and sent the series in a different direction in its second half. He also talks about the elimination of the flashbacks, and how the show was retooled during the hiatus.
• Building Collapse (4:49)
  Creator/co-executive producer Nick Wauters and visual effects supervisor Victor Scalise look at creating the building collapse scene in episode 6 (“Loyalty”).
• The Event‘s Visual Effects (1:47)
  Creator/co-executive producer Nick Wauters and visual effects supervisor Victor Scalise look at creating the satellite scene in episode 10 (“Everything Will Change”).
• Visual Effects Magic for “Inostranka” (4:33)
  Creator/co-executive producer Nick Wauters and visual effects supervisor Victor Scalise look at creating the alien crash site and Inostranka facility in the pilot.
• Creating an Event (11:20)
  The cast and crew discuss how the series came about, what drew the actors to the project, the global nature of the series, keeping the secrets and twists from the actors, the talented ensemble, and more. Includes behind-the-scenes footage, and interviews with creator/co-executive producer Nick Wauters, executive producers Steve Stark, Evan Katz & Jeffret Reiner, and stars Clifton Collins Jr. (“Thomas”), Sarah Roemer (“Leila Buchanan”), Scott Patterson (“Michael Buchanan”), Taylor Cole (“Vicky Roberts”), Laura Innes (“Sophia”), Željko Ivanek (“Blake Sterling”), Jason Ritter (“Sean Walker”), Blair Underwood (“President Elias Martinez”), Bill Smitrovich (“Vice President Jarvis”) & Ian Anthony Dale (“Simon Lee”).
• A Day in the Life with Jason Ritter (11:24)
  Star Jason Ritter gives viewers a fun, three-part tongue-in-cheek tour of the set, demonstrating all of the various jobs involved in making the show (all of which Ritter pretends are his responsability)—coffee runs, transportation, cameras, hair and make-up, props, entertaining the crew, craft services, sound, script supervising, and more.
• Deleted Scenes (55:04)
  Deleted scenes appear on the discs with their related episodes. Text before each scene explains its context.
  • Disc 1 (10:04) – scenes for “I Haven’t Told You Everything”, “Protect Them from the Truth”, “A Matter of Life and Death”
  • Disc 2 (18:15) – scenes for “Casualties of War”, “Loyalty”, “I Know Who You Are”, “Your World to Take”
  • Disc 3 (11:31) – scenes for “And Then There Were More”, “Inostranka”, “Turnabout”
  • Disc 4 (5:27) – scenes for “You Bury Other Things Too”, “Cut Off the Head”
  • Disc 5 (9:47) – scenes for “Us or Them”, “Arrival”
• Episode Commentaries
  The series creators, cast and crew provide commentaries on six episodes.
  • “I Haven’t Told You Everything” (42:30) – creator/co-executive producer Nick Wauters, executive producer Steve Stark, director/executive producer Jeffrey Reiner and series stars Blair Underwood and Ian Anthony Dale
  • “Loyalty” (42:02) – creator/co-executive producer Nick Wauters, executive producers Steve Stark & Jeffrey Reiner and series stars Blair Underwood and Ian Anthony Dale
  • “And Then There Were More” (39:29) – podcast commentary with production designer Stuart Blatt, special effects supervisor Gary D’Amico and visual effects supervisor Victor Scalise
  • “Inostranka” (40:57) – podcast commentary with production designer Stuart Blatt, special effects supervisor Gary D’Amico and visual effects supervisor Victor Scalise
  • “Strain” (42:21) – executive producers Steve Stark & Evan Katz and series stars Ian Anthony Dale, Laura Innes, Jason Ritter & Lisa Vidal
  • “Arrival” (43:07) – executive producers Steve Stark & Evan Katz and series stars Ian Anthony Dale, Laura Innes, Jason Ritter & Lisa Vidal

Final Thoughts:

The Event is an action-packed and entertaining series that ended too soon. The first season has an amazing cast, and lots of great twists and turns that keep you engaged and make you want to keep watching. Unfortunately the series was canceled after just a single season. While most of the mysteries and twists introduced in the first season are addressed over the course of the season, the series does still end on a big cliffhanger. That said, fans of the show should appreciate Mill Creek’s new Blu-ray release, which features strong picture and sound as well as a large assortment of bonus material. New viewers may be hesitant to start and unresolved show, but I really enjoyed revisiting it on this new Blu-ray release.