# The Pretender (1996)

> A genius raised in a secret facility escapes his captors and roams the country as a shape-shifting do-gooder while searching for his true identity.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/1604

## Facts

- Seasons: 4
- Episodes: 86
- Episode runtime: 43 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: drama, science fiction, mystery
- Created by: Craig W. Van Sickle, Steven Long Mitchell
- Network: NBC
- Cast: Michael T. Weiss, Andrea Parker, Patrick Bauchau, Jon Gries, Ryan Merriman, Harve Presnell, James Denton, Pamela Gidley
- TMDB rating: 7.5/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115320/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: moderate
- Complexity: accessible
- Violence: mild
- Tone: suspenseful, wistful, clever, sympathetic, tense

## What critics say

Viewers rate The Pretender as a positive, engaging genius-on-the-run drama with a fan base that rewards its season-by-season growth.

## Synopsis

The Pretender (1996-2000) is an American network drama created by Craig W. Van Sickle and Steven Long Mitchell for NBC, a four-season series that blends sci-fi conspiracy with episodic adventure. Michael T. Weiss plays Jarod, a prodigy raised inside a secret facility built for experimenting on children, who can master any profession and become anyone he needs to be. Having escaped, he moves from town to town, taking on fresh identities to help strangers while he hunts for his real identity and avoids the pursuit led by Andrea Parker's Miss Parker, a agent sent to bring him back. Patrick Bauchau and Jon Gries add further principal presences within the corporate and institutional web around him. Each episode is largely self-contained, built around a new person in trouble and a new disguise, while a steady undercurrent of conspiracy and the question of who Jarod really is runs through the whole run. The mood is suspenseful and wistful, with a moral streak that rewards a viewer who enjoys underdogs, clever impersonation and a hunter-and-hunted dynamic. Fans of The Fugitive, The X-Files and Alias will find resonance in its blend of pursuit, mystery and sympathetic outsider heroics, all across eighty-six episodes of a 1990s network sci-fi procedural.

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