The series revolves around a small-time Los Angeles psychic who used to be a big-time Las Vegas magician and now finds his cynical world view challenged when he starts to experience visions that may or may not be real.
It would help if, in the early episodes, Shut Eye would make more clear what tone it wants to take: hard-boiled action, lighthearted caper, dark drama with some fantastical elements.
There's no sense of spirit in these characters, and the just-sufficient fascination of the entire operation is owed almost exclusively to the cast, with special nods to Donovan, Strickland, and the indomitable Rossellini.
I had a couple, "This is a good, different world for a TV show" moments, before Shut Eye too often left the unique behind for a more conventional con man story and stale cable boundary-pushing on sex and violence and exhausted-looking antiheroes.
For all its stuffed storytelling, Shut Eye feels like a Ouija board: By the time you've seen your 12th version - and you've definitely seen this show before - all the magic is gone.
Shut Eye has plenty to offer its audience, but it struggles early on to find exactly what the focus of the series should be. Still, Jeffrey Donovan is reason enough to watch the series through to the end.
Shut Eye... loses most of its momentum as the story grows overcomplicated and undercharacterized. It's like watching a trick in which the dove fails to fly out of the magician's hat.
With an utterly unique setting and appealing actors, this drama intrigues, but it has so many subplots and side characters that keeping it all straight requires patience.
