Gallery: The Event Continues TV's Post-9/11 Conspiracy Obsession
01the-event-f
Lost launched an entire mythology on the wings of an airplane disaster, and so did Fringe. Now comes new conspiracy thriller The Event, which also milks post-9/11 anxieties about terror in the sky for dramatic tension in its opening moments. Debuting Monday at 9 p.m./8 p.m. Central on NBC, [The Event](http://www.nbc.com/the-event/) tracks a chain of events that lead hero Sean Walker (played by Jason Ritter) to the pilot's cabin of a jet that is being steered for reasons to be explained by his fiancee's grim-faced father (Scott Patterson). Last fall's similarly impressive [opening salvo for FlashForward](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/underwire/2009/06/first-look-flashforward-spins-global-blackout-into-time-warp-mythos/) failed to sustain the series beyond a single season. Whether The Event survives or perishes, it will surely not be the last in a long line of conspiracy-themed TV dramas. In the '90s, [The X-Files](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_X-Files) masterfully exploited civilian paranoia about shadowy bureaucracies as series creator Chris Carter tapped into long-simmering suspicions that the U.S. government methodically conspires to withhold information about alien incursions. But after 9/11, secretive governments and extraterrestrials suddenly seemed far less threatening than terrorists, not just in Hollywood but on the nation's streets. As reported in the *The Washington Post*'s "[Top Secret America](http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/)" series, 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies operating in about 10,000 U.S. locations dedicate themselves to surveillance or data analysis. Employed by 2010's bulked-up intelligence-industrial-complex, 854,000 people currently hold top-security clearances. With all that cloak-and-dagger activity taking place in the real world, it's no wonder that paranoia, intelligence-gathering, privatized black ops and bureaucratic in-fighting have gained fresh currency as small-screen fodder. Check the gallery for a sampling of post-9/11 TV dramas fueled by a decade's worth of prime-time paranoia. <script language="JavaScript" src="http://admin.brightcove.com/js/BrightcoveExperiences.js" type="text/javascript"></script><object class="BrightcoveExperience" id="myExperience609923156001"><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF"></param><param name="width" value="650"></param><param name="height" value="630"></param><param name="playerID" value="102172222001"></param><param name="publisherID" value="1564549380"></param><param name="isVid" value="true"></param><param name="isUI" value="true"></param><param name="dynamicStreaming" value="true"></param><param name="@videoPlayer" value="609923156001"></param><param name="videoID" value="609923156001"></param></object><script type="text/javascript"> runMobileCompatibilityScript('myExperience609923156001', 'anId'); </script><script type="text/javascript">brightcove.createExperiences();</script> __Above:__ The Event --------- __Key organization:__ The White House __Conspiracy theory:__ The president of the United States (Blair Underwood) visits a secret holding area in Alaska and meets a prisoner of unknown origins (Laura Innes of *ER*). Setting aside its over-reliance on the now-tiresome gimmick of multitiered flashbacks, The Event's pilot episode looks promising.
02warehouse13-f
Warehouse 13 ------------ __Key organization:__ Secret Service __Conspiracy theory:__ Agents Pete and Myka (Eddie McClintock and Joanne Kelly) operate out of a top-secret facility in South Dakota that serves as a storage facility for supernatural artifacts collected and protected by the U.S. government. Season 2 of Syfy's [*Warehouse 13*](http://www.syfy.com/warehouse13/) concludes Tuesday at 9 p.m./8 p.m. Central when the duo take on cutely named villain H.G. Wells (Jaime Murray).
03fringe-f
Fringe ------ __Key organizations:__ FBI and Massive Dynamic __Conspiracy theory:__ Agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) spent the first two seasons of this Fox series on the trail of Massive Dynamic, a giant corporation that has its hands in all manner of mischief. Bucking the bureaucracy at every turn, Olivia and her team head into the Thursday's [*Fringe*](http://www.fox.com/fringe/) season premiere (9 p.m./8 p.m. Central) having finally confronted the man behind the curtain (guest Leonard Nimoy as mastermind William Bell). Now they need to make sense of a parallel universe populated by doppelgangers.
04undercovers-f
Undercovers ------------ __Key organization:__ CIA __Conspiracy theory:__ J.J. Abrams' new espionage-lite NBC drama (debuting Wednesday at 8 p.m./7 p.m. Central) follows all-smiles spies Samantha and Steven Bloom (Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Boris Kodjoe), a husband-and-wife team that runs a catering business in between lingerie-and-tuxedo-clad assignments for the CIA. The pilot episode achieves some measure of authenticity whenever veteran character actor Gerald McRainey shows up as the happy couple's curmudgeonly handler Carlton Shaw, but this show is decidedly more upbeat than other entries on this list.
0524-f
24 -- __Key organization:__ Counter Terrorism Unit __Conspiracy theory:__ Gruff operative Jack Bauer seemed to hate his bureaucratic government overseers almost as much as the terrorists he continually pursued and pummeled. Prime time's most visceral response to the 9/11 attacks, 24 clocked in weekly as Bauer's screw-the-rules missions, abetted by CTU's unbelievably efficient computer geeks, got mired in intergovernmental turf wars.
06rubicon-f
Rubicon ------- __Key organization:__ American Policy Institute __Conspiracy theory:__ AMC's exceptional, slow-moving drama [*Rubicon*](http://www.amctv.com/originals/Rubicon/), (9 p.m./8 p.m. Central, Sundays) takes a cerebral look at a federally funded think tank charged with tracking potential terrorist activity. Will, the fictional institute's star analyst (played by James Badge Dale) tries to solve the death of his mentor, which somehow involves a cloverleaf, encrypted crossword puzzles and the manipulative company known as Atlas. In place of gunplay, brainiacs furrow their brows and stare into space in an effort to connect the dots.
07dollhouse-f
Dollhouse --------- __Key organization:__ The Rossum Corporation __Conspiracy theory:__ Who runs the assassin/escort service that employs mind-wiped "Actives" like Echo (Eliza Dushku)? In Joss Whedon's 2009-10 series [Dollhouse](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollhouse_(TV_series)), FBI agent Paul Ballard (Tahmoh Penikett) tried to free Echo from Rossum Corporation's sinister mind control.
08flash-forward-f
FlashForward ------------ __Key organization:__ FBI __Conspiracy theory:__ A network of loopy scientists play dice with the world's population by triggering a quantum event that moves consciousness forward six months during a collective two minute and 37 second blackout. To find the perpetrators, FBI agent Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes) and his colleagues try to detect meaningful patterns from seemingly random clues. Mirroring real-world rivalries, a [FlashForward](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlashForward) subplot involved an FBI agent who secretly worked for the CIA. The show was canceled earlier this year after a single promising season.
09john-doe-f
John Doe -------- __Key organization:__ The Phoenix Organization __Conspiracy theory:__ Borrowing from The Bourne Identity, memory-wiped title character John Doe (Dominic Purcell ) washed up on shore near Washington state at the beginning of this under-appreciated Fox series. Branded with a cryptic spiral-like mark on his chest, he spent the rest of 2002-2003's [John Doe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Doe_(TV_series)) trying to figure out who he is and how he got there. Monitoring Doe's movements as part of a secret experiment: the Phoenix Organization.
