Nbc Crusoe

"Crusoe" joins our stranded hero (Philip Winchester) in the middle of his journey. When we meet him, he's already washed up on his Island of Despair, following multiple attempts to leave England, rather than become a stuffed suit. He's already befriended his man Friday (Tongayi Chirisa), who is halfway to British refinement—he can recite John Milton and speak 12 languages, but he still gets his clothes from corpses. We learn the tale of Crusoe's path to the island and his estrangement from his true love, Susannah (Anna Walton) in a series of soft-lit flashbacks. Between the tortured heroes stranded on beaches and the flashbacks, it's hard not to think of "Lost." But where "Lost" is a nesting doll, reveling in never being quite what it appears, "Crusoe" is perfectly happy to be all surface. It feels like a cartoon and looks like a perfume commercial, and by the end of the two-hour premiere, I felt about it like I do about my workweek. I wanted more Friday.