User Reviews

Pilot Episode review

Great start with a shocking surprise ending in the pilot episode which I for one did not see coming at all. Prostitutes as well as young school aged girls have gone missing in every state for many years now and if you have ever watched TV crime shows such as Forensic Files, Dateline and/or 20/20 , there are always clues left behind which sometimes lead to an arrest and ultimately to a conviction, but there are also many open investigations which have remained open for decades.

In the Big Sky pilot episode we witness a young prostitute at a truck stop being abducted, as well as two sisters who were on a road trip when there car suddenly breaks down late at night. (No spoiler here, this scene was advertised a thousand times in the series preview commercials for the past few months).

So the chase has begun to find out what happened to the two missing sisters who were expected to arrive in Montana hours earlier but they never showed up. The young man Justin Hoyt (Gage Marsh) who was waiting for his girlfriend Danielle Sullivan (Natalie Alyn Lind) and her sister Grace (Jade Pettyjohn) to show up at his place is worried so he calls his dad Cody Hoyt (Ryan Phillippe) and mom Jenny (Katheryn Winnick) who own a Private Investigation firm who jump into action as they know how important the first 24 hours are in finding missing persons.

The private investigator Cody Hoyt is currently seperated from his wife and has been romantically involved with his other female detective Cassie Dewell (Kylie Bunbury) who also works with his wife Jenny who is a former policewoman. So there is marriage strife at the Hoyt detective agency as well as some uncomfortable moments between the two female detectives. As all these relationship issues are going on in the office, Cody Hoyt hits the road to see if he can assist his son Justin in finding Justin's missing girlfriend Danelle and her sister Grace.

There is a state trooper named Rick Legarski played by the always impressive John Carroll Lynch who would rather be out helping motorists on the highways he patrols rather than spending any quality time with his wife as they are now empty nester parents.

This pilot episode is a great start which had an even greater ending for the pilot episode. I hope the series which includes truckers, prostitutes, state patrolman, private investigators, missing women, and kidnappers leads us up and down the highway with more intrigue and surprises.

I give this the pilot episode a perfect 10 out of 10 IMDB rating.

I'd been looking forward to watching this throughout most of the plague year because I recalled reading the book this series is based on back when it first came out. I was a bit concerned given I knew what eventually happens about midway through the book and was still pleasantly shocked at the timing of the incident.

While the main characters have yet to be fully developed for me by the end of this first episode, I was immediately hooked by the performances of the victims and the somewhat (David) Lynchian performances of the villains of the piece.

A really interesting start to this series. I know full well that for every promise of another Twin Peaks we are often given pale imitations, but at least with a bona fide series of novels based on the central detective of this piece we at least have the potential for a resolution.

So the vampire is the cop and the trucker is just his familiar...Having sociopaths behavior blamed on the overbearing women in their lives is so-o-o-o 1970's , but maybe that's what they are going for.

This is only a grade for episode 1 and is subject to change.

Big Sky, from what the press has given us, is about a truck driver who kidnaps girls and private detectives have to stop him before he kidnaps more ladies.

So I'm not wowed or anything. It's decent. The teen girls plot was pretty predictable and a bit unrealistic with the truck driver supposedly turning at the same bend and stopping in the dark behind the teen girls. There could have been a better delivery instead because the road rage story was rather forced to me. It started to get better once the cop was called to investigate early in the morning. He then met with a private detective and there was the twist with the cop shooting the detective (he's actually working with the kidnapper).

I didn't like the prostitute scene. Too much kissing and not too much into the actual action. Could habe been more to the kidnapping instead. Hence why I said the delivery should have been changed. It's fine for what it is but could be better. I'm not familiar with Kelley's style but I hope his best shows soon. It's not good so far but it's only one episode.

Big Sky's pilot starts off boring and predictable but the ending few minutes left me somewhat interested in the arc and the episode brings some shock and horror even if some of it is predictable and I'll definitely check out a few more episodes.

Rating: 6/10 C+

A pretty strong start to the show here that feels like Twin Peaks meets Joyride.

Was it perfect? Of course not, but a good shock at the end, and enough eery stuff to keep me intrigued.

Spoilers: From only seeing episode one, I think it can be a good show depending on what direction the story goes. I am undecided as to how much they can do with this story. One disappointment is they really used Ryan Phillippe to get this show an audience and he is only in episode one.

I was looking forward to this when I saw the cast but was left disappointed. It was hard to watch at times with it feeling all forced and rushed. Seriously frustrating at times to watch. Now for my pet hate, the taser that turns into a tranquilliser. I had genuine hope for the girls and suddenly the villain turns into Thanos with the infinity gauntlet. Sure if he has to win the encounter for the plot line then have him win but it seemed like the taser has been cast as the lead in this episode. The twist was the only shining light but even still that all seemed awfully convenient that everything worked out rather than planned. I hope the show improves as it has potential.

BIG SKY is the first ABC series in a long while where the promo had me intrigued. It seems like it's going to have a mystery-horror-thriller vibe, which I'm all for. There's also the family and relationship melodrama, which I hope the writers keep to a minimum. At first the plot threw me for a loop in that they basically showed who the bad guys were from jump. I was expecting this to be a mystery as to who was kidnapping these girls. I didn't like it at first, but then the big twist ending to this episode actually kept me invested because that tells me these writers are not afraid to pull punches. I know a lot of fans were disappointed by this development, but as long as this is all leading to good storytelling, I'll keep watching. The main issue that I had with the Pilot is the tone, which felt like a cheap imitation of 90s output such as Northern Exposure, Twin Peaks, and Fargo. In fact, John Carroll Lynch, who plays Trooper Legarski, was in Fargo. For the record, I hate Fargo! lol In this Pilot, all the characters were overly quirky and annoying mostly due to the dialogue. The tone and pacing of the episode was off. And I still don't know if I like the 2 female leads playing the PIs, Katherine Winnick and Kylie Bunbury. I guess Winnick is supposed to be semi-famous but I can't recall her from anything and I only recognized Bunbury from the recent Jordan Peele Twilight Zone episode "Try, Try", which was actually good, but more because of the plot and Topher Grace than her. We'll see here if she's compelling lead material. They have a scene of the Bunbury dancing awkwardly in the office then Winnick comes in accusing her of sleeping with her hubby then they get into a bar fight and the husband breaks it up and it's all played for laughs. Oh, the husband-boyfriend is played by Ryan Phillipe. Pretty big name actor. I guess one could say that I "buried the lead." Anyone who has seen the episode will get that joke. In addition to the 2 PIs, I was really annoyed by Legarski's wife, the blonde sister, and the trucker's mother and I'm familiar with all 3 of these actresses, so I'll blame it mostly on the writing...for now. Too much weirdness in the Pilot for me. But thankfully the second episode was an improvement. I've heard this show is a hit, but then based on how 2020 has been going and the fact that it's on ABC, that's faint praise indeed.