''Wayward Pines'' is an American mystery

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

television series based on the ''Wayward Pines'' novels by

Blake Crouch William Blake Crouch (born October 15, 1978) is an American author best known for his '' Wayward Pines Trilogy'', which was adapted into the 2015 television series ''Wayward Pines''. Early life and education Crouch was born near the town of St ...

. Developed for television by

Chad Hodge Chad Hodge (born 1977) is an American writer and producer who created drama series '' Runaway'' (2006), '' The Playboy Club'' (2011), '' Wayward Pines'' (2015), and '' Good Behavior'' (2016). He wrote the Broadway stage adaptation of Irving Berlin ...

, the pilot was directed by

M. Night Shyamalan Manoj Nelliyattu M. Night Shyamalan ( ; born August 6, 1970) is an Indian-American filmmaker and actor. He is best known for making original films with contemporary supernatural plots and twist endings. He was born in Mahé, India, and raise ...

, with both as executive producers. The series premiered on Fox on May 14, 2015, and the first season concluded on July 23, 2015. On December 9, 2015, Fox renewed the series for a second season which aired from May 25 to July 27, 2016. After the second season, the series was canceled in 2018.

Premise

In the first season, Ethan Burke (

Matt Dillon Matthew Raymond Dillon (born February 18, 1964) is an American actor. He has received various accolades, including an Oscar and Grammy nomination. Dillon made his feature film debut in '' Over the Edge'' (1979) and established himself as a te ...

) is a

U.S. Secret Service The United States Secret Service (USSS or Secret Service) is a federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security charged with conducting criminal investigations and protecting U.S. political leaders, their families, and ...

agent investigating the disappearance of two fellow agents in the mysterious small town of Wayward Pines,

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Monta ...

. Ethan awakens from a car accident unable to contact the outside world and unable to leave. He finds one of the agents dead and the other, his former lover Kate Hewson (

Carla Gugino Carla Gugino (; born August 29, 1971) is an American actress. After appearing in ''Troop Beverly Hills'' (1989) and ''This Boy's Life'' (1993), she received recognition for her starring roles as Ingrid Cortez in the ''Spy Kids'' trilogy (2001� ...

), settled down in the seemingly idyllic town. But the inhabitants of Wayward Pines are trapped there by an electrified fence and set of rules enforced by the strict Sheriff Arnold Pope (

Terrence Howard Terrence Dashon Howard (born March 11, 1969) is an American actor. Having his first major roles in the 1995 films ''Dead Presidents'' and '' Mr. Holland's Opus'', Howard broke into the mainstream with a succession of television and cinema roles ...

). Any attempt to escape is punished by a public execution known as a "reckoning", when the Sheriff slits the condemned's throat. Ethan reconnects with his wife and son while working to discover the truth. In the second season, Dr. Theo Yedlin (

Jason Patric Jason Patric (born June 17, 1966) is an American film, television and stage actor. He is known for his roles in films such as ''The Lost Boys'', ''Rush (1991 film), Rush'', ''Sleepers (film), Sleepers'', ''Geronimo: An American Legend'', ''Your ...

) is a surgeon who is caught in the battle between Jason Higgins ( Tom Stevens), leader of the First Generation that took over Wayward Pines following the Abbie incident that closed season 1, and the underground rebels led by Ethan's son Ben Burke (

Charlie Tahan Charles Tahan (born June 11, 1998) is an American actor. His notable roles include Wyatt Langmore in the Netflix original crime drama ''Ozark'' (2017–2022), the voice of Victor Frankenstein in the Disney 3D stop-motion-animated fantasy horror ...

Cast and characters

as Ethan Burke (season 1) *

as Kate Hewson (main season 1, guest season 2) *

Toby Jones Tobias Edward Heslewood Jones''Births, Marriages & Deaths Index of England & Wales, 1916–2005.''; at ancestry.com (born 7 September 1966) is an English actor. Jones made his film debut in Sally Potter's period drama '' Orlando'' in 1992. H ...

as David Pilcher, alias Dr. Jenkins (main season 1, recurring season 2) *

Shannyn Sossamon Shannon Marie Kahololani "Shannyn" Sossamon () is an American actress, director, and musician. She has appeared in the films ''A Knight's Tale'' (2001), '' 40 Days and 40 Nights'', '' The Rules of Attraction'' (both 2002), '' The Order'' (2003), ...

as Theresa Burke (main season 1, recurring season 2) *

Reed Diamond Reed Edward Diamond (born July 20, 1967) is an American actor. He is known for the roles of Det. Mike Kellerman on '' Homicide: Life on the Street'', Jason Pillar in season 8 of '' 24'', and recurring character Laurence Dominic on ''Dollhouse' ...

as Harold Ballinger (season 1) *

as Ben Burke (main season 1, recurring season 2) *

Juliette Lewis Juliette Lake Lewis (born June 21, 1973) is an American actress and alternative rock singer. She is known for her portrayals of offbeat characters, often in films with dark themes. Lewis became an "it girl" of American cinema in the early 1990s, ...

as Beverly Brown (season 1) *

Tim Griffin John Timothy Griffin (born August 21, 1968) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the 20th lieutenant governor of Arkansas since 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he previously was the United States Attorney for the Eastern Dist ...

as Adam Hassler *

Melissa Leo Melissa Chessington Leo (born September 14, 1960) is an American actress. She is the recipient of several accolades, including an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award and two Critics' Choice A ...

as Pamela "Pam" Pilcher (main season 1, guest season 2) *

as Sheriff Arnold Pope (main season 1, guest season 2) *

as Dr. Theodore "Theo" Yedlin (season 2) *

Nimrat Kaur Nimrat Kaur (born 13 March 1982) is an Indian actress who appears in Hindi films and on American television. She began her career as a print model and went on to act in theater. After brief appearances in a few films, Kaur starred in Anurag Kas ...

as Rebecca Yedlin (season 2) *

Josh Helman Joshua Helman (born 22 February 1986) is an Australian television and film actor. Helman played William Stryker in '' X-Men: Days of Future Past'', and its sequel, '' X-Men: Apocalypse''. He has also appeared in the 2015 installment of the ''M ...

as Xander Beck (season 2) * Tom Stevens as Jason Higgins (recurring season 1, main season 2) *

Kacey Rohl Kacey Rohl (born August 6, 1991) is a Canadian actress. She is known for playing Sterling Fitch in the television crime drama '' The Killing'', Prudence in the 2011 dark fantasy film ''Red Riding Hood'', and Abigail Hobbs in the television drama ...

as Kerry Campbell (season 2) *

Hope Davis Hope Davis is an American actress. She is known for her performances on stage and screen earning various awards and nominations including a Tony Award nomination, as well two Primetime Emmy Awards, and two Golden Globe Award nominations. She m ...

as Megan Fisher (recurring season 1, main season 2) *

Djimon Hounsou Djimon Gaston Hounsou (; ; born April 24, 1964) is a Beninese-American actor and model. He began his career appearing in music videos. He made his film debut in '' Without You I'm Nothing'' (1990) and earned widespread recognition for his role as ...

as Christopher James "C.J." Mitchum (season 2) * Christopher Meyer as Mario (season 2) *

Michael Garza Michael Garza (born February 1, 2000) is an American actor. His most notable roles are starring in the film ''Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark'' (2019) as Ramón Morales and also appearing in '' The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1'' (2014) ...

as Frank Armstrong (season 2)

Production

''Wayward Pines'' was executive produced by

with

, Donald De Line, and Ashwin Rajan. The

pilot episode A television pilot (also known as a pilot or a pilot episode and sometimes marketed as a tele-movie), in television in the United States, United States television, is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell a show to a te ...

was written by Hodge and directed by Shyamalan. The series was officially picked up on May 13, 2013, with a ten-episode order. Filming took place between August 19, 2013, and February 14, 2014, in

Burnaby Burnaby is a city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada. Located in the centre of the Burrard Peninsula, it neighbours the City of Vancouver to the west, the District of North Vancouver across the confluence of the Burrar ...

(interiors) and

Agassiz Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz ( ; ) FRS (For) FRSE (May 28, 1807 – December 14, 1873) was a Swiss-born American biologist and geologist who is recognized as a scholar of Earth's natural history. Spending his early life in Switzerland, he rec ...

(exteriors), in

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, for ...

. The plot of Crouch's first novel in the trilogy, ''

Pines A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garde ...

'' (2012), is covered over the first five episodes of the TV series. The second and third novels, '' Wayward'' (2013) and '' The Last Town'' (2014), make up the remaining five episodes. After reading the source material, Shyamalan said of the project, "As long as everybody isn't dead, I'm in" — his "only rule" to secure his participation. He noted that the TV series varies from the books in some ways, but as Crouch was still writing the novels while the show was in development, there was "all kinds of cross pollinating" between the two. In June 2015, ''

Deadline Hollywood ''Deadline Hollywood'', commonly known as ''Deadline'' and also referred to as ''Deadline.com'', is an online news site founded as the news blog ''Deadline Hollywood Daily'' by Nikki Finke in 2006. The site is updated several times a day, wi ...

'' reported that Fox was considering a second season based on the series' impressive ratings. Though Hodge asserted that, from a creative standpoint, "''Wayward Pines'' was always designed to be just these 10 episodes" in concert with the plotline of the books, he allowed for the possibility of another season. He said that in the finale viewers would "see a window to that, but it also is a complete ending as it is." With the tenth episode having been billed as the "series finale", the show was effectively finished. However, on December 9, 2015, Fox renewed ''Wayward Pines'' for a second season, to premiere in mid-2016. After the conclusion of the first season,

stepped down from his position as showrunner and executive producer for the series. Mark Friedman succeeded Hodge as showrunner for season two. Season two has a largely new main cast, with several lead actors from season one either not returning at all or appearing only as recurring characters in the second season. This is in part because a few actors notably

and

committed to other series in the time between the filming and the airing of Season One. Also, the surprise decision to renew the series for Season Two occurred after several actors had moved on to other projects.

Episodes

Season 1 (2015)

Season 2 (2016)

Broadcast

On May 12, 2014, Fox announced that ''Wayward Pines'' would premiere in 2015 as

mid-season replacement In American network television scheduling, a mid-season replacement is a television show that premieres in the second half of the traditional television season, usually between December and May. Mid-season replacements usually take place after a ...

. The series was picked up for broadcast by Fox in the United Kingdom, and by FX in Australia from May 14, 2015, where the premiere was the second most watched program on subscription television with 101,000 viewers. Fox made the pilot available

on demand On-demand or on demand may refer to: Manufacturing * Build-on-demand * Just-in-time manufacturing, a methodology for production * Print on demand, printing technology and business process in which new copies of a document are not printed until an ...

and through various online outlets from April 23 to 30, 2015, in what the network called "the first-ever global preview event". The series subsequently debuted on May 14, 2015, simultaneously in more than 126 countries in what Fox called "the world's largest day-and-date launch for a scripted series ever". Due to

time zone A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between countries and their subdivisions instead of strictly following longitude, because it ...

s, episodes of the first season aired first in Australia.

Digital companion series

A digital companion series, also produced by Fox, aired alongside the weekly episodes of ''Wayward Pines'', titled ''Gone'' and written and directed by

Christopher Leone Christopher Leone (born October 13, 1971) is a Los Angeles-based filmmaker with a background in visual effects and CG animation. Biography Leone wrote and directed the science-fiction film '' Parallels'' released by Fox Digital Studio on the Net ...

. The series follows Eric Barlow, a rocket scientist, as he searches for his missing wife Sarah, a journalist, after she leaves a goodbye message and leaves him. He finds himself led toward a mountain in Idaho with the help of Sarah's colleague Elena, where he finds a man involved in the construction of Wayward Pines. Arriving at the site, a technician leads him to Sarah who is frozen in a prototype chamber, but it is really him they were after.

Reception

The first season of ''Wayward Pines'' has received mostly favorable reviews from critics. On

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

it holds a rating of 78%, based on 77 reviews. The site's critical consensus reads, "Creepy and strange in the best way possible, ''Wayward Pines'' is a welcome return to form for M. Night Shyamalan." The fifth episode, "The Truth", received an individual rating of 83%, based on 12 reviews. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the first season has a score of 66 out of 100, based on 34 critics for season 1 "generally favorable reviews". The second season however, received mixed reception from critics on Rotten Tomatoes with a rating of 43%, based on 14 reviews. The site's critical consensus reads, "''Wayward Pines'' drifts away from the intrigue and mystery established during its debut season, slipping into a dull, repetitive, and trite narrative."

Awards and nominations

References

External links

* * * * * 2015 American television series debuts 2016 American television series endings 2010s American drama television series 2010s American science fiction television series 2010s American mystery television series Nonlinear narrative television series Cryonics in fiction Dystopian television series Works by M. Night Shyamalan English-language television shows Fictional populated places in Idaho Fox Broadcasting Company original programming Post-apocalyptic television series Suicide in television Television shows based on American novels Television series by 20th Century Fox Television Television shows filmed in British Columbia Television series set in the future Fiction set in the 5th millennium Television shows set in Idaho Television shows featuring audio description {{authority control