Wayward Pines

Premise

In the first season, Ethan Burke (Matt Dillon) is a U.S. Secret Service agent investigating the disappearance of two fellow agents in the mysterious small town of Wayward Pines, Idaho. Ethan awakens from a car accident unable to contact the outside world and unable to leave. He finds one of the agents dead and the other, his former lover Kate Hewson (Carla Gugino), settled down in the seemingly idyllic town. But the inhabitants of Wayward Pines are trapped there by an electrified fence and set of rules enforced by the strict Sheriff Arnold Pope (Terrence Howard) and any attempt to escape is punished by a public execution known as a "reckoning". Ethan works to discover the truth.

In the second season, Dr. Theo Yedlin (Jason Patric) is a surgeon who is caught in the battle between Jason Higgins (Tom Stevens), leader of the First Generation that took over Wayward Pines following the Abbie incident, and the underground rebels led by Ethan's son Ben Burke (Charlie Tahan).

Cast and characters

Production

Wayward Pines is executive produced by Chad Hodge with M. Night Shyamalan, Donald De Line and Ashwin Rajan. The pilot episode was written by Hodge and directed by Shyamalan. The series was officially picked up on May 13, 2013, with a ten-episode order. Filming took place between August 19, 2013, and February 14, 2014, in Burnaby (interiors) and Agassiz (exteriors), in British Columbia.

The plot of Crouch's first novel in the trilogy, Pines (2012), is covered over the first five episodes of the TV series. The second and third novels, Wayward (2013) and The Last Town (2014), make up the remaining five episodes. After reading the source material Shyamalan said of the project, "As long as everybody isn't dead, I'm in", his "only rule" to secure his participation. He noted that the TV series varies from the books in some ways, but as Crouch was still writing the novels while the show was in development, there was "all kinds of cross pollinating" between the two. In June 2015, Deadline.com reported that Fox was considering a second season based on the series' impressive ratings. Though Hodge asserted that, from a creative standpoint, "Wayward Pines was always designed to be just these 10 episodes" in concert with the plotline of the books, he allowed for the possibility of another season. He said that in the finale, viewers would "see a window to that, but it also is a complete ending as it is".

With the tenth episode having been billed as the "series finale", the show was effectively finished. However, on December 9, 2015, Fox renewed Wayward Pines for a second season, to premiere in mid-2016. After the conclusion of the first season, Chad Hodge stepped down from his position as showrunner and executive producer for the series. Mark Friedman succeeded Hodge as showrunner for season two. Season two has a largely new main cast, with several lead actors from season one either not returning at all or appearing only as recurring characters in the second season. This is in part because it took so long for season one to make it to air, a few actors – notably Terrence Howard and Juliette Lewis – had committed to other series in the interim. Also, the surprise decision to renew the series for season two occurred after several more actors had moved onto other projects.

Broadcast

On May 12, 2014, Fox announced that Wayward Pines would premiere in 2015 as mid-season replacement. The series was picked up for broadcast by Fox in the United Kingdom, and by FX in Australia from May 14, 2015, where the premiere was the second most watched program on subscription television with 101,000 viewers.

Fox made the pilot available on demand and through various online outlets from April 23 to 30, 2015, in what the network called "the first-ever global preview event". The series subsequently debuted on May 14, 2015, simultaneously in more than 126 countries in what Fox called "the world's largest day-and-date launch for a scripted series ever". Due to time zones, episodes of the first season aired first in Australia.

The first season aired Thursday at 9:00 pm. The second season aired Wednesday.

Digital companion series

A digital companion series, also produced by Fox, airs alongside the weekly episodes of Wayward Pines, titled Gone and written and directed by Christopher Leone. The series follows Eric Barlow, a rocket scientist, as he searches for his missing wife Sarah, a journalist, after she leaves a goodbye message and leaves him. He finds himself led toward a mountain in Idaho with the help of Sarah's colleague Elena, where he finds a man involved in the construction of Wayward Pines. Arriving at the site, a technician leads him to Sarah who is frozen in a prototype chamber, but it is really him they were after.

Reception

Wayward Pines has received mostly favorable reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the first season holds a rating of 79%, based on 63 reviews. The site's critical consensus reads, "Creepy and strange in the best way possible, Wayward Pines is a welcome return to form for M. Night Shyamalan." The fifth episode, "The Truth", received an individual rating of 83%, the only episode of the series to do so. On Metacritic, the first season has a score of 66 out of 100, based on 34 critics for season 1 "generally favorable reviews".

The second season however, received mixed reception from critics with a score of 46 out of 100, based on 9 critics for season 2.