A key that opens any door into a desert motel room stuck in the '60s. Everyday objects from the room gain weirdly specific powers when taken out of the room—a wristwatch that boils eggs, a bus ticket that instantly transports people to the middle of nowhere outside of Gallup, New Mexico. Cabals of collectors fighting secret wars over the objects. And over everything, a mystery: what happened in the lost room to give the objects their powers?

The premise of The Lost Room is a brilliantly unique and creative idea that had so much potential. Unfortunately, the show's execution didn't live up to that potential. Too many details in the writing that don't stand up to scrutiny; acting that is only tolerable, at best; and a host of unanswered questions at the end all leave me feeling like this show could have been better had HBO or Apple TV thrown buckets of money at it in 2020 rather than what the SyFy Channel could manage in 2006. The idea just didn't get the resources it needed to really breathe.

That's a shame, because I can't think of many stories as creative and intriguing as The Lost Room. Give me a cast of talented actors and some strong writers at the helm, and I'll be there for a reboot of this unpolished gem. Until then, I'm putting this one back under the rock where I found it.