TV Review: “Touch,” a Show Worth Saving

It’s that time of year when the broadcast networks (ABC, Fox, pitiful-ratings-wise-but-decent-creatively NBC, and pitiful-quality-wise-but-explosive-ratings-wise CBS) begin to schedule their shows for the upcoming Fall season, and that means that within a couple weeks we’ll know the fates of all the “bubble” shows that could either get renewed or get put out to pasture.

Now of course there are plenty of TV shows I’d like to see saved, and I created an Entertainment Editorial list a month ago that included NBC’s terrific, under-watched Awake, NBC’s equally under appreciated Community and Parenthood, ABC’s wholly original gem The River, and Fox’s perennial underdog Fringe. But I left out one show because, at the time, I thought it stood a really good chance of coming back for another season.

Of course, I’m talking about Fox’s Touch, a show blessed with a post-American Idol time slot and starring Fox royalty, 24 star Kiefer Sutherland. I didn’t think there was a realistic chance that Fox would let this show go when so many of their other dramas (Alcatraz, Terra Nova, House) were either shitty, canceled, or retiring. Boy, what a difference a month makes…

Touch has lost viewers every single week it’s been on the air, and at this point looks unlikely to get another season unless things begin improving ASAP. And boy I hope they do, because the show does honestly merit your consideration.

For those unfamiliar with it, Touch stars Sutherland as a single dad trying to keep custody of his severely autistic son, who never says a word but communicates with numbers. Every week involves Sutherland getting entangled with a new set of numbers and how they play into the larger world. Where Touch succeeds is in those larger world sections as the narrative globe hops from wildly different (and usually satisfying) stories about a doctor in Vancouver, teen girls rebelling in Saudia Arabia, or an abused wife in Africa. You never know exactly where the show will take you with its subplots, and that’s at least half the fun.

Is Touch a perfect show? No. Is it sometimes corny and trite? Absolutely. Far-fetched? It never bothers me, but you could say that. And is the subplot about a government worker (Gugu Raw, looking lost) trying to take Jake from Martin ever remotely interesting? No.

Still, the show is one of the few quality dramas on TV with a positive message (we are all connected), and treats the larger world as something besides a place where American spies can do missions or terrorists train to blow up buildings. It’s genuinely interested in the world at a time when most TV shows keep getting smaller (stale sitcoms with the same five settings every week, CBS crime shows that scare old people into never leaving their house or else a serial killer will get them). Touch is fresh and open and interested and interesting, and for all those reasons it deserves to stay.