Touch

Jan. 25 Touch: Today I finally saw the pilot to Touch. It's by Tim Kring, the guy who created Heroes. He's really creative and a great writer. On Heroes, it was about a group of people all around the world who had superpowers. They were all connected to one another. If you watch Touch, it's about a group of people who are all connected with one another.

I was very inspired by it. Tim Kring had said in this article I read in 24: "This is really a chance to continue what you would call social-benefit storytelling, the idea of using archetypal narrative to create and promote a positive energy in the world."

This show is about a man who discovers that his mute and autistic son can predict world events. It has a strong opening about patterns and numbers, spoken from an autistic 11 yr old boy named Jake (David Mazouz). Cut to Jake's dad Martin (Keifer Sutherland) who picks up a phone he got from an airport. (I went on imdb.com to get the actors and characters names, but there weren't any. So I'm going to use descriptive names instead.)

The British Guy calls Martin: "You have my phone. I want it back." It has pictures of his daughter that has passed away. Martin's own phone starts ringing, and he puts the Brit Guy's phone on suitcase, and it goes through the terminal.

Jake is on the tower. Martin shows him a cell phone to get him to come down, and he does. I like that Martin says to everybody to not touch Jake, because it's real. A lot of autistic people don't like to be touched and freak out. It was mentioned when autism was shown on The Listener and Criminal Minds.

Jake goes to the tower at 3:18pm, three times in the past three weeks. They go to the gas station, and there's a school bus. Jake goes to it, and the school bus has 318 on it.

Cut to Nerdy Guy videotaping Kayla singing at karaoke bar with Brit Guy's phone. He tells her that she will be famous when this gets on TV.

Cut back to gas station, and Lottery Guy buys a lottery ticket. Jake takes the ticket, and is chased down. Lottery Guy argues with Martin about his son. Cut to Lottery Guy putting his lottery ticket on the wall, with the hundreds of lottery tickets. It looks like wall paper.

At 3:18am, Martin wakes up because his laptop woke him up. He puts Jake to bed. Then all these cell phones ring at the same time. It's all the same number, the lottery ticket number.

Cut to Baghdad. Teen boy is watching Chris Rock and pretending to be him, Mom tells him that their oven broke down. If there's no oven, they can't bake bread, and make money.

Cut to Social Worker talking to Martin. Martin used to have a good job, but works 50hrs a week now in regular jobs like construction work.

Martin: Jake maybe trying to communicate with me. He's been putting the alarm at 3:18, he goes to the tower at 3:18.
SW: Does he even know who you are?
Martin: My wife died on 9-11. She was a stockbroker at the World Trade Centre. All her money went into Jake's trust fund.

Lottery Guy won the lottery.

Brit Guy calls wife to ask if there are more of daughter's photos other than the ones on his phone.

Cut to Prostitute in Tokyo who steals money from john. The scene is shown on the Brit Guy's cell phone.

Martin puts Jake in institution for a couple of weeks. Martin visits wife's grave and talks to her saying he feels like he failed them. He sees a medal by the grave with the number 318. He looks up autism and being mute on the internet. It leads to this House with the address 318. It's called the Teller Institute. A Black Man is there and explains math sequences and how we're all connected.

Cut to institution and Jake is putting popcorn kernels and lined them up. SW counts the kernals with him: "That's my mom's phone number. I haven't thought about that in years." Her cell phone rings and it's that number. No one's on the line.

Lottery winner makes plans to go on a trip.

SW goes to Martin that 318 is today, March 18. Martin figured it out, and the phone number is Grand Central Station. It's 2:56pm. They go to the station, and Martin finds that the phone number leads to the pay phone. It's being used by the Lottery Guy. They recognize each other and get into a fight. Security guards break it up. Martin sees it 3:19pm, and he missed the call.

Lottery guy: You made me miss my train!

Baghdad. Teen boy and his friend break into a restaurant to steal oven. Terrorists come in and the boys hide. Terrorists leave, but then they attack boys as they run.

Martin gets answering machine message: "I was a firefighter on 9-11. I found your wife. I carried her, and then stopped. She's died. I was playing the numbers of 9 11 20 01 82 (floor number). I won the lottery. In the background, you can hear Martin saying: "I need to use the phone."

Martin then sees TV news, and Lottery Guy is there. It turns out he saved a school bus full of children. Then Lottery Guy realizes he was at the right place, at the right time because he missed his train.

Martin goes to see his son at the institution, but he's gone. Martin and SW goes to the cell tower. Martin climbs up though he's scared of heights. He tells Jake he knows he's communicating with him. Jake hugs him. But then Jake takes his cell phone and dials a number. Martin calls it and says to the man on the other line that they're supposed to meet.

Brit guy calls tech support Kayla: "I want my cell phone back."

Baghdad. Teen boy has a bomb strapped to him. The karaoke singer Kayla calls him: "You have a cell phone that's not yours." Teen tells her his situation.

Teen: I need an oven.
Kayla: I can get one for you. I'll disconnect the phone and you take out the battery to stop the bomb.
Teen takes out battery with 1 sec to spare.
Cut to Brit Guy sees his photos of his daughter on the street building's screens. I think it's Times Square or at least it looks like it. He cries. He's handsome.

Kayla sees herself singing karaoke on Youtube.

Teen gets oven.

Jan. 27 Busy plots: There is quite a few story lines going on Touch, with a lot of characters all around the world. However, it doesn't seem to be very busy. I think it's because it's well-written and all the characters are interconnected, so it's kind of like one story. The main story has to be a father and his autistic son.

It's like with Desperate Housewives, there are four women and their families, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. To the core, it's the the four women with four story lines.