This feels a lot like an M. Night Shamalama project. I suspect his hand is fairly heavy in the decision making process on this one. Matt Dillon is a fine and interesting actor, and drew me to watch the pilot He has plenty of company here with other fine actors, all of whom cannot save this train wreck of a show. The problem with Wayward Piles, as with most of Shamalamadingdongs work, is that it expects you to drop all pretenses of reason and believability and go for a ride with the silly, poorly conceived fantasies of the author. Nothing makes sense, but if you just turn off your brain and stop asking questions, then it might hold your attention. Unfortunately, even for those who are willing to, or long ago have, turned off their brains, this show feels set up for nothing more than an old fashioned Charlie Brown and Lucy missed football kick. I have no idea what the ending holds, as I only made it through three episodes before I couldn't take it anymore, but there seems to be only two ways for this to end. Either the city is real, in which case nothing makes any sense whatsoever, or it is imagined by a crazy Matt Dillon character, in which case it makes no sense whatsoever. Either way, the show is primarily nothing more than trickery to keep viewers confused so they might come back again to resolve things, which of course, will never happen in a satisfactory way. It seems the makers of Waylow Pines has borrowed ideas of several good shows, (i.e. Lost, Twin Peaks, The X-files et. al.) and ignored any of the important things those shows did to stay on the air for so long, while copying their grave mistakes.
Review of Wayward Pines
