'American Odyssey': Three Ordinary People, One Thrill-Filled Plot

Transcript

ARUN RATH, HOST:

The new NBC show, "American Odyssey," is best described as - well, let me let Peter Horton, the co-creator and executive producer, explain.

PETER HORTON: It's easiest to describe the show by starting with what it's not. It's not a police show. It's not an FBI show. It's not a CIA show. It's a modern-day thriller told in three story bubbles, basically, about three very ordinary people.

RATH: Three ordinary people who all stumble onto the same massive conspiracy - a lawyer who unearths a cover-up, a political activist trying to expose it and at the center of it all, a soldier struggling to get home from North Africa after her team is wiped out by the U.S. government.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "AMERICAN ODYSSEY")

ANNA FRIEL: (As Odelle Ballard) They won't stop until they find me and they kill me. My whole unit is gone. My friends are gone. I have to keep moving.

RATH: Sergeant Odelle Ballard is the Odysseus of this American Odyssey, the hero trying to get home.

HORTON: The thing that stuck with us was, you know, the basic theme of someone going through a real journey or an odyssey to get home. There's something achy about that theme. And so we just started running with that. But that's all that (laughter) - that's the only thing we stole from Homer.

RATH: You know, this - you've probably heard this a lot. Maybe it's annoying. This has been compared a lot to "Homeland." The show that I thought of more though was "24," actually. You're kind of trusting your viewers to follow different storylines.

HORTON: Yeah.

RATH: But I think a lot of it also might be this really strong, heroic lead.

HORTON: That, and - and like I say, the fuel of it being tension. I mean, "24" was always kind of on-the-edge-of-your-seat storytelling. And at the same time, what we're trying to do, and you'll see as the series goes on - there's a real human story underneath of all of the action and tension. For us, that's the little dirty secret underneath. Is this a character piece?

(LAUGHTER)

HORTON: But the tension on top of it is what drives it.

RATH: So there's a really vast, very dark conspiracy involving the U.S. government doing, or parts of the U.S. government, doing horrible things to U.S. citizens in this. Is this kind of like a product of the post-Snowden years when people are more apt to see their government doing potentially bad things?

HORTON: It's a combination, I think, of the post-Snowden era and the post-Citizens United era.

RATH: (Laughter).Yeah, that the campaign financed.

HORTON: Yeah, accompanying the financier - where suddenly you can get as much money as you have to a candidate to promote your cause. It's post-Snowden in the sense that indeed, what we know is the extent to which not only government agencies, and frankly, private industry, can invade our private space. It's also the post-Citizens United because this series is ultimately about power. Do we have it as individuals in our country or anywhere in the world? There are three Davids up against, you know, the Goliath of money and power.

RATH: You're dealing with betrayals in this series of Muslim terrorists, of American soldiers in developing countries - you know, the kind of things that there will be cultural critics with sharpened knives all across the spectrum watching this very intensely.

HORTON: Sure.

RATH: Is that something that worries you, and are there things you're trying to avoid?

HORTON: Yeah. I think especially with the Muslim world, there's such trope, such stereotype out there. And it's not the Muslim world. It's a segment of the Muslim world. So really, again, the fun of it is taking on a trope and saying, OK, here it is. Yes, that does exist in our world. And then suddenly, a character you'll see in episode three comes along who is a, quote, unquote, "terrorist" but has a whole different point of view. And what you start to find is, his point of view is reasonable. You know, he's human. He's not a bad guy. And that's the fun of this show - not only with the Muslim world, but frankly, all of the tropes that do - you know, even the corporate tropes.

RATH: The other thing that seems tricky about this is that this show is set in the right-now. I mean, there's even - in one of the early episodes, somebody says the date, and it's actually the date that the show is airing.

(LAUGHTER)

RATH: And you have things like, you know, Islamic terrorists in Africa, a Greek election. Isn't that kind of dangerous to - you might get overtaken by actual events.

HORTON: If it's - yeah. Well, you know, the Greek election was a shock to us because, you know, we started working this three years ago.

RATH: Oh, way before the actual Greek election, stuff with the Euro and...

HORTON: Way before the Greek election stuff. Well, it was just at the beginning of Greece's problems. And we thought, wouldn't it be interesting if there was a candidate who came along and it was a people's candidate who said, I'm going to just toss this debt, and we're going to pull out of the eurozone and - well, lo and behold, right around the time our show launches, that's what happens in Greece. So so far, for better or worse, world events have cooperated with our story (laughter).

RATH: They've caught up with you (laughter).

HORTON: Yeah, exactly.

RATH: Peter Horton is the co-creator and executive producer of the new NBC show "American Odyssey." It's been great speaking with you. Thanks so much.

HORTON: My pleasure. Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.