User reviews

Phillip Dewaar learn to spell "creative" if you want to be taken seriously.

This was actually a innovative show. It also introduced a limited time frame though, 24 episode max. 9 people, bank heist, once the connections were made. . . done. The fact that it only reached 13 episodes was a realization on 2 fronts, 1-the why's and how's can only be stretched so far and 2 - nobody actually cares that much bank robberies on a TV medium.

Bank heists should be left to 3 episode fillers or 1 episode plot devices. Movies though, I don't mind if the main focus is only a bank, only because it is only a time sacrifice of a couple hours or less and not a week by week commitment between 1 to 6 months long.

Lucas Dalton (Owain Yeoman) and his brother Randall Reese (Jeffrey Pierce) walk in to rob a bank. It's supposed to be a short hold-up but 52 hours later, the police finally ends the long stand-off. The nine surviving hostages are changed by the incident and regularly meet. Franny Rios (Camille Guaty) and single-mom sister Eva Rios (Lourdes Benedicto) are bank tellers. Eva is killed along with the security guard. Suicidal Egan Foote (John Billingsley) becomes a celebrated hero. Surgeon Jeremy Kates (Scott Wolf) and secretly pregnant girlfriend Lizzie Miller (Jessica Collins) break up. Police detective Nick Cavanaugh (Tim Daly) has a gambling problem. Felicia (Dana Davis) is the daughter of bank manager Malcolm Jones (Chi McBride). Nancy Hale (Susan Sullivan) is at the bank with her ADA daughter Kathryn Hale (Kim Raver).

This needs a more compelling hook at the very beginning. The missing money should be the big reveal in the first episode. There should be a cop character investigating it to heighten the tension. I would like more of a Rashomon method of flashback story telling. It takes too long to have the first exciting extended flashback. It's the third episode when the initial takeover is added to and it's probably too late to hook the audience. The problem is that the slow reveals don't add up to excitement. It's a somewhat meandering way of story telling. With no viewers, this is quickly canceled.

Network: ABC; Genre: Drama; Content Rating: TV-PG (some violence and language); Perspective: Contemporary (star range: 1 - 4);

Seasons Reviewed: Incomplete Series (1 season)

Nine strangers walk into a bank, followed by a pair of violent deranged robbers. 52 hours later they are released. What happened in that time we don't know, but as each episode unfolds we get an hour-by-hour account of how it all went to hell inside. The survivors now bonded together by trauma, including cop Tim Daley, boyfriend Scott Wolf, politician's wife Kim Raver ("24") and bank manager Chi McBride.

While it sounds like an exciting premise, "The Nine" comes off more like "Lost" in reverse. Creator K.J. Steinberg answers the network mandate coming off the success of ABC's island character drama and Fox's "Prison Break" with her own drama that like it's predecessors uses the medium of TV to flesh out and explore characters in a confined situation.

TV is a copy cat industry, I have accepted that. When trying to replicate a hit often what gets lost in the translation are the very things that made the original show a hit. And it is usually the small things that were overlooked. In a desire to change things just enough, Steinberg gets everything that makes "Lost" work completely backwards. Where "Lost" has a grand-scale adventure A-story that drops us out of it for more character building in the B-story, "The Nine" takes the opposite approach, making the character drama the A-story and the more exciting bank robbery the B-story. As a result it feels bottom-heavy and lacks urgency. And worse, it is an unsolvable problem.

"Nine" calls back to "Prison Break" in that it is a short-sighted series that doesn't seem concerned that its basic premise by its nature is enclosed. In this situation it can either play like a long movie and end earlier than the average syndication-craving series or it stretches itself out over seasons with inevitably leads to cheating on the premise and loosing all credibility. The audience and ABC saw to it that neither of these happened by doing what it does and pulling the plug early.

"The Nine" is painfully anti-climactic, peaking in the first episode with the harrowing immediate aftermath of the bank robbery, and settling into a straight character drama for the remaining episodes. Relationships are formed. Relationships break up. People feel guilty about something they did in the bank. The cop (Daley, who along with McBride deserves much better) is slung in the middle of a department cover-up of the way they handled the hostage situation. The further we get from the bank, the more "The Nine" could have been about anything – and that is being very kind, not knowing what happened in the bank is more riveting than what is actually revealed.

There is one highlight. John Billingsley steals the show as a meek accountant who is inspired by his new post-robbery lease on life (and minor celebrity) to leave his wife, quite his job and live, dammit, live! Everyone else, I really could not care less about. Their stories quickly become routine plug-in drama, completely and totally interchangeable with almost any other character drama. The show tries to hard to split the difference, be everything to everyone and it works as neither a character drama nor a thriller. And I don't have to tell you that is a deadly recipe to put the audience to sleep.

* ½ / 4

If ever there was a fan base who deserved a DVD request, its the fans of "The Nine." Of course all of us know how badly this brilliant show was treated by ABC right from the very beginning (i.e. scheduling it - UNBELIEVABLY - in the same Wednesday 10:00 p.m. time slot) - the slot where many of ABC's previous shows were also prematurely pulled (a lot of us are "EYES" fans too, ABC). Fans of The Nine waited for months and months, believing ABC's promise that they would air the remaining episodes some time in 2007. We were patient - We trusted you guys - We had no reason to believe otherwise. We waited through spring, when it was first going to air;then we waited through summer thinking that it would be aired as an alternative to summer reruns. Several months later ABC finally aired 2 of the remaining episodes. Great! Fans tuned in on the third week back only to find The Nine had been pulled AGAIN!

ABC blindsided this loyal fan base. They did not keep their promise to us. Gee ABC...low ratings? Could it be because some genius at your network decided not only to do "0" promotion, but because the same Wednesday 10:00 p.m. competitive time slot was used? ARE YOU KIDDING US??????? Any initial gratitude we had soon turned to feelings of anger, shock and immense disappointment. ABC's message to fans of The Nine: "WE DON'T VALUE OUR ADULT VIEWERS, EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE THE ONES WHO MAKE AND BREAK A NETWORK." Its as if ABC thought the fans would just give up (after waiting for MONTHS and MONTHS). Even the other networks allowed their shows to go an entire season, canceled or not.

Well ABC, WE'RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE without some type of compensation to make up for a broken promise. At the very least your network owes loyal fans a DVD, AND some form of conclusion to the series. Perhaps a made-for-TV movie, as networks have done in the past? Yes, we know the actors are on other shows now, but we would be willing to wait for a time when they are either on vacation status or hiatus or whatever. WE'VE ALREADY WAITED THIS LONG, SO WHAT'S ANOTHER LONG WAIT? If this is not possible for some reason, how 'bout allowing fans to see the remaining scripts? You could post them on your website and you could also put them on the DVD (the one you owe us). If money is all this network cares about, FANS OF THE NINE WILL WILLINGLY PURCHASE THE DVDS. We LOVE this show and miss it terribly. Now there is virtually nothing on ABC for mature adult viewers to watch and that's the audience your network is driving away. So, at least consider this proposal ABC?!

It's amazing to me how anyone watching the pilot to The Nine could have thought for a second about ordering this show.

The pilot was a visual mess, directed by a director who does not understand visual storytelling. To wit, shaking the camera at everything is not directing, it's just, well, shaking the camera at everything in sight.

Add to that songs that sounded like they were force-fed on the show by a team of deaf marketing executives, and you have a show that never delivered and never had even a prayer of delivering.

If that's what the creator of Without a Trace has in store, he should go back to his hit show.

This show is the most impressive drama series I've seen since the glory days of "NYPD Blue." I was aghast when ABC pulled it from the schedule.

Yes, it follows the "Lost" method of parsing out plot details, but I felt that every episode revealed a satisfying amount of the mystery. I'm glad to see it back on the summer schedule so I can at least see a few more episodes.

It's a show to which you must pay attention to understand, so that probably has something to do with its low ratings (remember "Arrested Development?").

The casting is phenomenal. It's nice to see Tim Daly in a very convincing dramatic turn, and Chi McBride is one of the most underrated actors ever. He is a completely different, absolutely believable person, in every role. John Billingsley also did a great job free of prosthetics. The entire cast does a fantastic job as well.

This show was based on character, which is almost invariably the root of good drama. It wasn't based on titillation or slick editing or trendy ratings phenomena (OK, I'm sure "'Lost' in L.A.!" was part of the pitch, but at least it wasn't a reality or game show). It featured an ensemble of human characters with human nobility and human flaws.

It's extremely depressing that a quality show like this has been dumped in favor of ... well, I don't know what will replace it because I doubt I will watch it.

I look forward to a DVD release of all filmed episodes at least. It will go nicely with my "Boomtown" set.

No, The Nine will not be missed at all.

It wasn't a "crative" or "innovative" show. Rather it was a show that tried ever so hard to clothe itself in the trappings of the current bad-directing-as-hype nonsense.

Apparently, if you direct a show as badly as you possibly can by playing with your zoom and shaking the camera you're supposed to be "hip", "edgy", "real" and whatever buzzword is cool that particular day.

Of course, shooting a show in that way is nothing but pseudo-intellectual self-gratification of the worse order.

One had to feel bad for Tim Daly, who is a wonderful actor who deserved the excellent EYES to be a success. Sadly, he had to waste his time on that waste of film.

It won't be missed... at all!

We have all seen movies about hostage situations over certain places, but The Nine takes it up where usually others stop. In the very beginning, the plot chooses not to start with the actual bank robbing event (well, it actually does), but after the robbers enter the bank, the next cut is the saving sequence. How come you ask? The next 35 minutes of the pilot travels through the repercussions of the event, seeing every character very deeply changed, and having meetings and grief together (about the only one person loss at the 52 hour event.). The story has considerable amount of questions hanging in the air, which will surely be answered in the episodes. If the audience is intrigued about what may have happened in the bank, they'll watch the season.

I think it'll work and we won't see another cancel...

I enjoyed this series and am very disappointed it's gone. It's plot line was unique and compelling, and though character developments were ramping up slowly, I found that to be a good thing. Sort of like getting to know a good friend in depth, over time.

That 'friend' wasn't any particular character - there were no "superstar standouts" in the large ensemble cast in my opinion, but each person was interesting enough to hold their own, plus contribute to the overall 'character' of The Nine.

If they're going to pull the rug out it would be great if they'd consider a wrap-up movie, a micro-series or a publication where lingering questions and mysteries of what happened during the hostage holdout and what happens with their lives in the aftermath are put to rest.

The Nine is a potentially stellar new show that, while still working out a few kinks, is proving itself to be the best new show of the season! With all the junk that is on the television these days, this show is quite refreshing. The show is a critical hit, though not one with the viewers. This is likely because of the misleading previews which made the show look like a new Big City version of Lost. The Nine is not like Lost, and as a fan of both shows, I believe that The Nine definitely brings new things to the table.

The Nine deals, simply put, with a bank robbery. When 2 brothers decide to rob a bank, they are sure that it "will all be over in 5 minutes." However, when things go wrong, the brothers decide to change the plan. 52 hours later, the 9 survivors finally emerge from the bank, changed from their traumatizing hostage ordeal. The show focuses mostly on The Nine's lives after the robbery.

The Nine is definitely character-driven, unlike its comparison show, Lost, which, although character plays a vital role, is driven primarily by some crazy plot line. The Nine leaves the events of the bank robbery a mystery, making the viewer wonder what happened in there, what caused the characters to change situations the way they have, and who was really innocent or guilty. Bonds have been made and broken, but no matter what, The Nine are all connected after what they went through.

The acting is believable and genuine. The actors bring their emotions out fully, and there is not one stand-out performance in comparison to another. They are all fantastic. They make the viewer really feel attached to the characters.

The script is realistic, if not a little cheesy at times, but is heartfelt nonetheless. With time, I know this show could turn out to be something big, if given the chance.

All in all, The Nine is intriguing, and heartbreaking. Unfortunately, so few people are realizing this, so the show is in danger of cancellation. I'm just going to enjoy this rare gem while I can!

Well I have watch all seven episodes of this show and I just found out today that abc cancel the nine. This show is amazing about nine people who survive a bank robbery. It tells the story of their lives after this dramatic event. I don't know why they would cancel a great show just because the ratings our falling. If abc was smart they would return the nine the same time they return Lost because it did very well when it was on after Lost. I always watched Lost first and wanted some more drama and The nine was right after. I didn't think ABC was like FOX cancelled every show. Big mistake ABC why don't you cancel an awful show like Desperate Housewifes.

I couldn't figure how a show about a single bank heist would work out? So I watched the first episode.

Then another, and another.

After watching it appears to be quite compelling with twists and turns in every episode.

Great character actors and an ever evolving story line. Very innovative and refreshing after so many so called reality shows.

Now I'm hooked! Was complete disappointed it wasn't on tonight (previous weekly time) so I'm wondering what is up. Was surfing around for info and found this site. Hope the network hasn't given up already? That is my two cents worth.

Regards,

I was channel surfing late one night in Costa Rica and washed ashore on The Nine. One of those yummy slow burns. I enjoyed the build-up, the character development, the changes in point of view. I looked for it every night - like trying to find a lost ankle charm on a sandy shore - and kept looking when I arrived back in Canada. I found out that the show can be downloaded. Lucky Day... NOT. Just another case of "US viewers only". Shame, shame. I know the show isn't for everyone (particularly for those who need more instant gratification) but it hooked me and I don't even know what episode it was. I hope it shows up on DVD - or the ban (and why is that?) on Canadian downloading comes to an end.

With all the reality show slop on TV today, this was a very different approach to a typical bank robbery drama. Are we all so brain dead that people didn't have the ability to watch LOST and The Nine back to back? If that is true why it failed then move the show to Friday night against Law and Order..Gotta hand it to ABC ..Last show they canned after 6 episodes was Vengeance Unlimited with Michael Madsen that I felt was a good plot line..Bad timing that Friends was on at the same time...The writers seem to rush some of the character plot lines but for the most part it seemed to flow..Instead of trying to find the bad guy ,you know the bad guy right up front and then see where everyone was in their own life. How can you get better shows when the ratings make shows like this get canceled due to thinking outside of the box

I really liked this show.

I am curious as to what happened to the "characters'.

Tim Daly is great.

I see the show is on tonight as listed as "NEW".

Does that mean the show will be on the fall schedule? Or is this really a repeat but they are stating it as "NEW"? I am also curious as to why we have to write a minimum of 10 lines in the comment box, when 5 lines will suffice.

I also see other posts with less than 10 lines... so what is with that???

Will we be able to get this show on DVD any time soon???

I very much enjoyed watching The Nine from the very first episode and was very disappointed when I found out it was cancelled. The way they did the flash back scenes to the actual bank robbery while the survivors were shown dealing with the traumatic ramifications of being held hostage was a good way, in my opinion, of making the program more interesting. I always looked forward to the next episodes in order to find out exactly what happened during the bank robbery, including the shooting of the one victim. I liked all of the characters, including the "villians." I hope they decide to put The Nine back on the air even if it is at another time or another day.