On this episode we are previewing The CW’s new mystery drama Frequency. It stars Peyton List (The Tomorrow People), Riley Smith (The Messengers), Mekhi Phifer (ER), Devin Kelley (Resurrection), Lenny Jacobson (Nurse Jackie), Daniel Bonjour (The Walking Dead) and Anthony Ruivivar (Third Watch).
Frequency, which creates a new story with the same core concept of communicating through time as the film, follows Det. Raimy Sullivan. She has sort of followed in her father’s footsteps, while trying to prove that she is nothing like him. As the story goes, 20 years ago, her father left her and her mother to go deep undercover, where he went bad and ultimately ended up dead. She can barely bring herself to talk about him with her boyfriend or even her closest friend from childhood. But, as you might expect, that might not be what really happened.
In the present after a storm she is somehow able to talk to her father back in 1996, through his old and long-broken ham radio. After some confusion Raimy tells him what happened to him and he uses that knowledge survive the night he was killed. But, changing the past ends up changing the present in big ways. Separated in time by two decades, they try to use this ability to fix things without hurting those around them.
I really liked the pilot and how they set up the story, especially showing that there are real consequences to making changes to the past. I like that it has a different spin on the time travel than the many other shows in the genre these days. That being that no one is actually traveling back in time, but that you can communicate with someone. The cast is good, I’ve always liked List in her previous shows and Smith is really good as well. The surrounding cast works well, even if the aging up/down of some characters so the same actor can play them in both time periods doesn’t always work so well. There is lots of mystery to solve, even though we as the audience know some of it already. I think this is an interesting framework to tell stories within and that they can go a lot of places with it. I mean, how with this all affect her, if they make too many changes and she can remember all of them? I like the hybrid nature of the show, being a serialized procedural. You are probably going to get her solving crimes while continuing to investigate the ongoing stories of the big serial killer case they setup and stuff surrounding her father. I look forward to watching more, which will have me watching nine of The CW’s 10 shows airing this fall.
Watch the Trailer for Frequency

Does The CW’s Frequency sound like something you’ll be tuning to when it premieres Wednesday, October 5th after Arrow?
Listen and then let me know what you think in the comments or via Twitter @theTVaholic.
Update 9.29.2016: I also talked about Frequency with @DocBrown_TV and @IAmPollyP on The CW Fall TV Preview 2016 episode of the TV times Three Podcast.