Remember the human-interest, thoughtful series that was “Touch” Season 1, the program that left you warm and fuzzy at the end of each episode? Well, that series is gone in Season 2. It’s replaced by a tense thriller with corporate conspiracies and a serial murderer—yes, a serial murderer, complete with slashing blades and blood splattering on the walls. That serial killer, dedicated to killing 36 savants of which the young genius Jake is one, is a bad, bad idea. It’s like some dumb network executive thought, “I don’t like the sweet, poetic and hopeful stories of Season 1. Let’s throw in a serial killer in Season 2!” The result totally changes the character of the series and nearly ruins the show. This season quadruples the violence to a level that damages the series instead of helping it, making it just one of the myriad of grim thrillers that overpopulate TV programming. Thankfully, about 60% of Season 2 deals with the corporate hunt for Jake and his ilk, which is very suspenseful and had me binging episodes until the finale. But if I hadn’t already been invested in the main characters when I began Season 2 and I had been a new viewer instead, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t have continued past the first episode. I guess an intelligent, elegant, happy family-friendly program (a la Season 1) is too much to ask for.

2021 Update: Talk about forgettable. I remember 0.0001% of this series five years later.