TV Review-----TOUCH

Keifer Sutherland makes his return to television in a new Fox Series called TOUCH. The title is a double meaning which refers to what Sutherland's character cannot do to his autistic ten year old son and also how one simple gesture can end up affecting several lives around the world. Sutherland plays a widower whose wife was killed on September 11, 2001 in the North Tower of the World Trade Center. She left him with a barely 1 year old autistic son. The pilot episode begins with Sutherland coming under fire from Child Services because his son keeps escaping from school to climb a very high cell tower. It suddenly becomes clear to Sutherland that his son is trying to communicate with him through a series of numbers. It also becomes apparent that the child is also a bit psychic and can see future events, which he then tries to stop by communicating with codes and numerical orders. While this is happening, a cell phone that is lost at an

NYC airport becomes a catalyst for a series of events around the globe that somehow all get linked back to this missing phone. It took me about a half hour to get into the swing of what was happening in this very fast moving first episode. But once I became invested, it was a fun and captivating journey. Sutherland has very appropriately chosen a character that is absolutely nothing like Jack Bauer. A man who is at the end of his ropes financially and emotionally, it is never less than obvious how much love he has for a son that he can barely communicate with and is unable to physically hug or touch. The episode concludes with the son typing a phone number into a cell phone, letting his father know that there is more work to be done and more people to help. It will be interesting to see if America goes for this very unique series. I hope that it doesn't become yet another "procedural" and will continue to focus on the relationship between Father and Son as they both attempt to communicate without any sort of physical connection. I can't promise that this is a show that I am going to stick with for its duration, but the pilot interested me enough that when it returns on March 19 for its regular run, I will watch a few more episodes to see if I am truly invested.