Still dissecting the trailer for Fox's Touch? Frustrated you can't start an actual countdown to the return of Kiefer Sutherlandbecause the show still doesn't have an airdate? You're not alone.
The upcoming drama from Heroes boss Tim Kring stars 24'sSutherland doing what he does best: making sure the world doesn't self-destruct. Standing in for Jack Bauer is Touch'sMartin Bohm, widower and father to a mute, severely autistic son, Jake. The problem? Jake harbors the uncanny ability to connect patterns and discover the meaning behind seemingly unrelated events happening all over the world.... In other words, he can predict when bad stuff is going to go down, among other things, and his dad Martin's the one who will have to deal. (Get ready for emotional Kiefer, world!) Just for kicks — and because we still miss 24 — let's count the ways Touch, without meaning to,will continue its legacy, using the trailer as our guide:
Problematic kids: Sure, Kim Bauer got kidnapped. (Several times.) Sure, she dropped out of school to become an au pair, and later got caught in a cougar trap. But she could scream and call her dad for help. Martin's son Jake doesn't talk at all. So when Jake gets a hankering to climb cell towers (which look really tall in that trailer!) at 3:18 p.m. on a daily basis without communicating why... well, it would appear Kiefer's TV offspring are forever cursed.
"Dammit!": Sources say Martin will unleash one in the first episode of Touch. That's what these kids — and the fate of the world — will do to a guy.
Suicide bombers: Yes, seriously. There's one — a young one — in the pilot for Touch. Whether or not Martin is the guy to defuse the situation... but who else is going to, right?
Cell phones: From the looks of things, they'll command a starring role in Touch, handy for preventing disasters foreseen by Jake. With any luck, they'll be as good as Jack Bauer's supermobiles, which grabbed signals from the bowels of the deepest terrorist hangouts, instantly transmitted codes, uploaded maps and all other manner of life-saving, key-decrypting intel. Oh, would it were that our iPhones came equipped with 1,000,000,000G technology.
"New York": Los Angeles stands in for the Big Apple in Touch too!
A ticking clock: Martin's racing to stop these events from happening (or to make sure they happen correctly). He's racing to figure out what his son is trying to tell him. He's racing to solve the world's mysteries. Kiefer will never stop running. Never!