Fall TV First Impression: ABC's Ten Days in the Valley

The broadcast networks have nearly 20 shows debuting this fall, including CBS’ S.W.A.T. reboot, the maiden space voyage of Fox’s Orville and The CW’s soapy new Dynasty. To help you prep for it all, TVLine is offering First Impressions of the not-for-review pilots.

Next up on our list….

THE SHOW | ABC’s Ten Days in the Valley (Sundays at 10/9c, premiere date TBA)

THE COMPETITION | NBC’s Sunday Night Football and CBS’ Madam Secretary

RELATED Read Our First Impressions of ABC’s The Mayor and The Good Doctor, CBS’ S.W.A.T., SEAL Team and Young Sheldon, and The CW’s Valor and Dynasty

THE CAST | Kyra Sedgwick (The Closer), Kick Gurry (Sense8), Erika Christensen (Parenthood), Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Lost), Emily Kinney (The Walking Dead), Currie Graham (Murder in the First), Felix Solis (The Family) and others

THE SET-UP | Sedgwick stars as Jane Sadler, a TV crime drama showrunner who finds life imitating art when her daughter is abducted in the middle of the night. Gurry costars as Jane’s embittered ex, while Christensen and Akinnuoye-Agbaje play her sister and the lead investigator, respectively.

RELATED Fall TV Poll: Which New Shows Are YOU Most Looking Forward To?

THE FIRST IMPRESSION | This looks to be the real deal, folks, my favorite of the half-dozen drama pilots I have screened thus far. Penned by Rookie Blue creator Tassie Cameron and covering 10 days over the course of as many episodes, the show takes its time in establishing a sense of dread as the child’s vanishing nears, and then does some interesting things with Jane’s immediate reaction once it does. The canvas is populated with an interesting variety of well-cast characters(/suspects?) from both Jane’s personal and professional lives — from the seemingly supportive to the mildly (or outwardly!) contentious. Most interestingly (and perhaps the show’s biggest obstacle, in establishing a root-for heroine), Jane is no Girl Scout. Rather, she has at least a couple of secrets brewing in the first hour alone, though she is far from alone in that respect.

RELATED Fall TV Schedule: What’s on When? And Versus What?

THE TVLINE BOTTOM LINE | It’d be great to see Ten Days thrive in a time slot where other ABC dramas have struggled, but it will need to overcome a bit of a “disconnect” leading out of the network’s new Sunday reality-TV block of To Tell the Truth and Shark Tank (though the latter’s most recent run did average a robust-for-ABC 1.2 demo rating).

Watch the trailer for Ten Days in the Valley , then vote in our poll below.