The Lost Room

When homicide detective Joe Miller (Peter Krause) is assigned to an unusual murder case, he stumbles upon a key that opens a mysterious room at the Sunshine Motel no matter which door it is used on. The key, which happens to be one of the most important of around 100 special objects associated with that room, is sought by greedy multi-millionaire Karl Kreutzfeld (Kevin Pollak), crime lord wannabe Howard "the Weasel” Montague (Roger Bart) and no less than two different secret societies. The last thing Miller really wants to do is get involved in this weird conspiracy but he has no choice when his daughter, Anna (Elle Fanning), disappears in the room. To make matters worse, his fellow officers suspect he may have murdered his Anna, so he’s on the run and the clock is ticking as he attempts to figure out what’s going on and whom he can trust. By starting with this interesting concept and building an engaging story of loss and redemption, the Sci-Fi Channel created a winner with The Lost Room, a four-and-a-half-hour miniseries that reminds of other TV mystery thriller successes like The Twilight Zone, X-Files, Twin Peaks and Lost. Unfortunately, the two-disc DVD set is pretty bare bones, with the only bonus features being the short "Inside The Lost Room” featurette, which gives a bit of background on the creation of the concept and how it evolved. With so many different people involved in the miniseries, it’s surprising they didn’t utilise the cast and crew to create at least a few different episode commentaries. And while this miniseries certainly deserves it, hopefully the open-ended conclusion and early award nominations won’t mean a return of The Lost Room to television as a sequel, TV movie or series, as it’s more likely to degrade the original miniseries than improve upon it.