What do these ravenous extraterrestrials want? Is the human race their primary source of nutrition? Nothing so sinister, as it turns out. It’s only somewhat of a spoiler to say that the show doesn’t resolve who runs Panic, or why it matters so much – a decision presumably meant to inspire dread for a second season but, like a Panic-emblazoned scarecrow found as a warning in the finale, is a lifeless omen.It’s mass hysteria as aliens descend upon Earth… and my stars, are they hungry! UFO’s hover overhead as the starving aliens (chased by Men in Black) shamble all over town, causing widespread panic among the citizens and their pets.
The final episodes descend into total incoherence, scuttling whatever momentum was gained in the individual, mindfuck challenges for too many competing betrayals to keep track of and a left-field plot device so contrived it prompted a guffaw. With its ludicrous clue drops – letters strategically removed from a downtown theater marquee, secret graffiti messages – and frequent use of dark, creaky farmhouses as suspense tactics, Panic’s tone wobbles between teen thriller, a la Halloween, and small-town soaps such as Riverdale and One Tree Hill, before dissolving into a touch of outlandish magical realism at the end. Nicholson, the son of actor Jack Nicholson and inheritor of his father’s disconcertingly intense stare, far overplays a character coded in neon letters as white trash but at least commits to the bit of a redneck swashbuckler.
Welch, in particular, plays Heather as convincingly steelier than she realizes.
IPANIC REVIEW FULL
There is negative chemistry between Heather and Bishop, but as the other side of the love triangle, Welch and Nicholson do what they need to do to sustain the first half of the season, which prioritizes sexual tension over full booby-trap horror (I, a chicken, appreciated that the show held back on gore).
Which doesn’t mean that Panic isn’t easy to watch, especially when released by Amazon for a full binge it’s remarkable how far the baseline dramatic pulse of two conventionally attractive teens verbally sparring nose-to-nose can carry a show. None of this ever approaches answering the central question from the first episode – why any of the characters care so much about protecting this game, and fear the people behind it. It is a sad commentary on American higher education that Heather’s turning to Panic for college tuition is one of the less dubious elements of this show, which also tosses in several indistinguishable, listless side plots into what killed homecoming couple Abby (Avianna Mynhier) and Jimmy Cortez (David De La Barcena) the previous summer, who is maybe betting on contestants, and where some blackmail might be buried, featuring buffoonish sleuthing by police chief James Cortez (Enrique Murciano) and deputies. Her nothing-left-to-lose freefall throws a wrench into several gameplans – Natalie looks for glory, inscrutable newcomer Dodge Mason (Mike Faist) for mysterious revenge, brash party boy Ray (Ray Nicholson) for ephemeral escape from an eclipsing future, Tyler (Jordan Elsass) for money to pay off drug debts. When her boozy, neglectful mother (Rachel Bay Jones), with whom she shares a trailer with her kid sister Lily (Kariana Karhu), steals her savings for community college, Heather bets all on a last-minute entry into Panic’s cliff-jumping kick-off ceremony. With her best friends Bishop (Camron Jones) and Natalie (Jessica Sula) planning to leave town after the summer, Heather is in desperate straits. Panic, it’s explained over and over, offers an antidote to several of the characters’ greatest fear: never leaving town (despite several owning cars and smartphones, which get used for a text message here or there).
IPANIC REVIEW SERIES
High-schoolers gather each summer to watch their friends skirt death by inches for … what, exactly? It’s a zombie of a series - all the parts of a dystopian-adjacent, horny teen YA thriller without a heartbeat of central mystery. The series leans heavily on teen adrenaline but offers frustratingly few clues as to why it’s applied to Panic, who’s coercing them, or why no one simply spills the beans. But Panic’s 45-minute episodes, also written by Oliver, barely lift above a dramatic flatline. The stakes for the characters in Panic are sky high – literally life and death, as in a second episode challenge where contestants traverse a rickety steel beam between two grain towers stories above a crowd of their peers.
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