Television airwaves are deluged with science fiction fare. Regardless of quality, most series fit into one of two categories: people in militaristic uniforms having adventures in outer space, or people in silly costumes engaging in heroic adventures on Earth. When you get right to it, there's not that much variety in the genre.
Which is what makes Fox's Strange Luck a refreshing change of pace. The premise is simple: a young man, Chance Harper, experiences a succession of unusual coincidences, which began as a child when he was the sole survivor of an airplane crash. An average episode traces how luck involves Harper with seemingly unrelated events, objects, and people, then affects the people's troubled lives for the better.
Either I've been playing too many CD-ROM games of late or this show's plots actually are executed like a live-action CD-ROM adventure. Not only do seemingly unrelated incidents come together at miraculous moments, but the show's film technique bears remarkable similarities to the CD-ROM game 7th Guest and its ilk. In one episode, Harper receives a pair of pliers in the mail. Later in the story, he gets shot and the bullet is stopped by the pliers, which he kept in the breast pocket of his trench coat. This is some well-written stuff, considering that personal dramas aren't sci-fi TV's forte.
Watching an episode of Strange Luck unfold is like seeing all the twists and turns in an interactive plot play themselves out. But it's not like gaming without the interactivity think of this as the TV show that happens to be perfectly geared toward the CD-ROM generation.
Strange Luck: airing Fridays on Fox. Additional information on the Web at www.foxworld.com.
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