John Doe | |
---|---|
Genre |
Drama Science fiction |
Created by | Brandon Camp Mike Thompson |
Starring |
Dominic Purcell John Marshall Jones Jayne Brook Sprague Grayden William Forsythe |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language(s) | English |
No. of seasons | 1 |
No. of episodes | 21 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producer(s) | Brandon Camp Mimi Leder Mike Thompson |
Running time | 44 minutes |
Production company(s) | Camp-Thompson Productions Regency Television Fox Television Studios |
Release | |
Original network | Fox |
Original release | September 20, 2002 | – April 25, 2003
John Doe is an American science fiction drama television series that aired on Fox during the 2002–2003 TV season.
I woke up in an island off the coast of Seattle. I didn't know how I got there ... or who I was. But I did seem to know everything else. There were things about me I didn't understand ... the brand, being colorblind, extreme claustrophobia. And while my gifts provided answers for others, I still search for my own. My name is John Doe.
In the opening scene of the series' pilot episode, a mysterious man wakes up on an island off the coast of Seattle, Washington, naked, with absolutely no memory of who he is or how he got there. However, apart from the details of his own past, "John Doe", as he comes to call himself, seems to have access to the sum total of all human knowledge: he knows how many dimples are on a golf ball, the population of Morocco, and other such obscure (and not-so-obscure) facts. He also has expert knowledge on everything from the stock market to computers. Over the course of the series John attempts to find clues about his past by using his unusual ability while also helping to solve crimes with the Seattle police department. In the process it becomes clear that an international conspiracy known as the Phoenix Organization is watching John's every move.
Due to the series' cancellation, the final episode ended with an unresolved cliffhanger, revealing that Digger, John's close friend, was in fact the true leader of the Phoenix Organization. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, series creators Brandon Camp and Mike Thompson revealed what would have happened and John Doe's true identity.
Make that someone who looked like John's friend. The villain unmasked in the finale was actually just a Phoenix member with some fancy facial reconstruction. Turns out, the Phoenix believed Doe was the Messiah and its members were actually protecting Doe from a second group, which wanted him dead. The truth: Doe was injured in a boating accident. That mark on his chest? A scar left by a piece of shrapnel from the explosion. His Überbrain? A by-product of transcending his body during a near-death experience, traveling to a spiritual plane where all the universe's questions are answered.