AGENTS 86'D

THE CANCELLATION OF 'THRESHOLD'

'Threshold' was another misstep, CBS Entertainment President Nina Tessler said, adding that CBS is unlikely to air the remaining episodes. "The show never reached its creative potential," she said, adding, "so we just said bye-bye."

Of the three alien invasion series that premiered this fall, I expected 'Threshold' to make it to the seasonal finish line in May.

I thought 'Surface' would prove too confined in its premise - even with the Seven Seas as their playground. And I'm not a fan of Lake Bell. I was glad to see her vacate 'Boston Legal' and had no interest in diving into this latest project with her.

As for 'Invasion', on paper it was the show I was most excited about, even if it's setting would have been more restricted than that in 'Surface'. I'm always willing to give the shows created by Shaun Cassidy a chance, ever since 'American Gothic'; although it hasn't always proven to be worth the time.

As it turned out, I was bored out of my mind with 'Invasion' before fifteen minutes were up, and everything about the show was making my skin crawl with distaste. I tried several times to go back to watching it, but was hit by that same revulsion each time.

I'm told the show has finally found its footing and the story is at last riveting, but it's too late for me. It took far too long to snare its audience. With 'Surface', I hear they also have begun to pick up steam in their plotlines, but I'll trust TV critic David Bianculli on this one - he says it's not worth the bother and that's good enough for me.

But as for 'Threshold'.... I'll admit that it had quickly fallen into a rut; each episode just a variation on the same plot - alien hybrid humans come up with a way to spread the "contagion", and the Threshold team stops it. Nevertheless, it was the dynamic of the cast and their interplay that I enjoyed the most.

For Toobworld purposes, there is a way for me to keep the show alive. It's true that a basic rule of Toobworld is that a series continues its "life" even after it's canceled; we just don't get to watch it unfold. But this time I mean there is a way to continue seeing 'Threshold' in action on the screen.

'The X-Files' is one of the most influential TV series of the last fifteen years - conspiracy theories, alien visitations, genetic mutations, black ops, paranormal activities and good old-fashioned paranoia..... And leading the investigations - a couple of FBI agents.

So many shows have come along since then that were obviously influenced by it - 'Strange World', 'The Burning Zone', 'The Visitor', 'Strange Luck', and 'The X-Files' own spinoff, 'The Lone Gunmen'. And one thing that they had in common - sooner or later, FBI agents got involved.

Whenever the Threshold team arrived on the scene of a possible alien contagion, they didn't want to alarm the general public by stating who they really were. So they had a variety of IDs at the ready for all possible contingencies: health inspectors, Food and Drug Administration, Internal Revenue, ATF agents, DEA agents... and FBI agents.

So that's how I can keep 'Threshold' alive for Toobworld. There will be TV series about aliens among us for the foreseeable future. And there will be FBI agents called in to investigate.

But will they really be FBI agents? Couldn't some of those quietly working in the background really be agents of the Threshold Project?

For all I know, there have been FBI agents called in during several episodes of both 'Invasion' and 'Surface'. And if so, maybe a few of them were actually working for Threshold.

Toobworld - always alive and ever expanding.....

BCnU!
Tele-Toby