Mysterious Ways

Reviewed by:
John Walsh

Sometimes unholy alliances can yield positive results. Take Mysterious Ways, for example. This NBC series reads at first glance like a cross between The X-Files and Touched by an Angel. It preaches to an audience already converted by several seasons of dark and moody sci-fi mysteries, and lays the on emotional elements with a trowel at times. But it succeeds for exactly the same reasons The X-Files won its audience, with interesting, playful chemistry between the two leads.

Adrian Pasdar, the incredibly creepy lead in Fox’s late, underrated Profit, plays Declan Dunn, an anthropology professor fascinated with unexplained phenomena. Buried under an avalanche as a boy and left for dead, Dunn beat the odds and survived. Was it simple luck or some weird force that saved his life? By running down other supposed supernatural occurrences, Dunn hopes to solve the riddle of his own encounter.

The professor’s holistic approach is challenged by psychiatrist Peggy Fowler, played by Rae Dawn Chong. Fowler is the voice of scientific reason in the series—and more than once, the voice of the audience, prodding Dunn back to reality with a well-timed “Oh, please.”

Oh, and we would be remiss not to mention that Alisen Down, who plays Dunn’s research assistant, is a babe of the finest campus-cutie variety.