Review of 'Manifest' 1.3

A fairly interesting Manifest 1.3 last night, centering around the murder of a passenger on the flight that skipped forward in time, Kelly. It turns out that her death was apparently just a run-of-the-mill murder—by a significant other who didn't like how Kelly was treating her after the return—but the end of the episode provided a more important payoff for the overall narrative. Or, rather, a question: why did the Feds take her body?

And just prior to that, we get the reveal that the survivors have a strange element in their blood, thought to be brought on by near-death experiences. So where do those two factors leave us?

Are the Feds hiding evidence because they don't know or understand what happened to the flight, either? Or are they the architects of what happened? And while we're on the subject of knowing, do the passengers themselves have some kind of repressed memories of what happened?

Unfortunately, all of this moves so slowly on network television, interrupted by commercials, that it's hard to maintain interest. Add to that a slew of acting that's close to robotic—a common problem with the network television (think of The Crossing or Somewhere Between for recent examples). All of which leaves Manifest as an excellent idea, with a development that could be twice as astute and compelling.

But sucker for anything time travel that I am, I'll keep watching and reviewing it.