“Veritas: The Quest”
Tonight at 8 pm on WABC/Ch. 7 []
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NAME this show, movie or video game and win $1 million:
A young person with archealogist parents (at least one of whom has died mysteriously) is thrust into the world of antiquities him/herself, which takes him/her to the most exotic locales, learning in the process the secrets of ancient civilizations.
Oh yes, and the young person is good-looking, rebellious and not exactly lacking in dough.
If you guessed “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,” you’d be right. And if you guessed this is yet another television attempt at copying its successful formula, you’d also be right.
Tonight, ABC launches its midseason series, “Veritas: The Quest,” brought to you by – yes! – the folks who already brought you “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.”
Here, it’s Nikko (Ryan Merriman), a disgruntled Prep-school boy who is so sulky through the first episode, you want to smack him. He improves by the second, thank God.
Nikko, who is constantly being thrown out of private schools, has his reasons for being disgruntled. When he was a little kid, for completely inexplicable reasons, he was made to accompany his mom to an extremely dangerous archealogical site – perhaps where civilization first began. Mom disappears, natch, and Nikko survives.
His dad, Solomon – get it – also an archealogist and college prof, has continually packed the kid off to boarding school as soon as he was old enough to cross by himself, and they have an icy relationship.
When Nikko gets tossed out of his latest school, Dad (Alex Carter) has no choice but to pack his super intelligent-but-sulking son and take him with him to Paris.
That’s when Nikko learns that Dad is not in fact just any old college prof, but the head of a company – Veritas – which is investigating (under cover) ancient civilizations which involve beings from outer space – or some damned thing – while being chased by dangerous, espionage types.
There is the mysterious brotherhood who will keep Solomon and Co. from learning the truth; there are narrow escapes and some pretty good car chases. This ain’t a cheap show by any means.
Here’s where it turns from aping “Lara Croft” into ripping off the much, much, much better “Alias” – perhaps the best action show on the tube.
To add spice to Nikko’s already very exciting new life, there’s Juliet Droil (Cobie Smulders), a Brooke Shields look-a-like, who also just happens to have gone to Princeton.
Solomon has brought her to Paris to be Nikko’s tutor. Right.
For a series so devoted to the mysteries of how life began, there’s not much magic here.
P.S. I lied about the million-dollar prize.