ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 23, 1995 TAG: 9512260002
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MICHAEL E. HILL THE WASHINGTON POST
Where is ``Nowhere Man''? Ah, a question with many answers.
One recent day, Bruce Greenwood, who plays the show's nowhere guy, Tom Veil, was filming the UPN dramatic series 60 miles outside Portland, Ore., working 18 hours in a Pacific Northwest rainstorm.
The show itself these days is found only intermittently in TV listings, giving way to December holiday fare or reruns.
Searching for the series in the Nielsen ratings? Check toward the bottom.
But if you're looking for a worthy series to feed your ``X-Files'' tastes and make you reminisce about ``The Prisoner'' and ``The Fugitive,'' then the channel carrying UPN shows should be your next stop. (``Nowhere Man'' airs Sunday at 2 p.m. on WDBJ-Channel 7.)
For those unfamiliar with the series - and the ratings would suggest such folks are legion - a word about the show.
In the first episode of ``Nowhere,'' viewers were introduced to documentary photographer Thomas Veil, enjoying a moment in the spotlight at the opening of an exhibit of his work. It included a disturbing photograph of an execution in a Third World country, apparently overseen by military men.
Later in the evening, dining with wife Megan Gallagher at a favorite haunt, he steps into the men's room and returns to find her gone. And no one in the place has ever seen him before.
From then on, every shred of identity has been stripped from Veil. The ATM machine sucks up his bank card; friends treat him as a stranger. Meanwhile, the photograph has been stolen, and Veil flees from this suddenly alien world, the photo's negatives in his clutches.
The travails of Veil have gone relatively unnoticed by males who view Monday as a football night. The show's producers hope to give the series a jump start with that crowd in January.
The pilot episode, one of the season's best, will be rebroadcast Jan. 8. ``January's episodes are contingent on having seen the pilot,'' said Joel Surnow, the series' supervising producer.
``We have to deliver a certain number of clues each week,'' said Surnow, ``but at the same time continue to dangle a carrot.''
But there is a prime difference. ``We're trying to stay away from the paranormal,'' said Greenwood, ``and let what's disturbing and disquieting be completely believable. The idea is that the organization or government out there is so powerful they could undo someone's life in a convoluted way. We don't need space ships coming to be frightening.''
A number of viewers have found the show so unsettling that they've written Greenwood to share their own scary experiences, or maybe just their paranoia.
``As I read stories people send in, if what they say has happened is true, it's horrifying,'' he said. Too strange even to repeat. The mail, Greenwood said, brings everything from ``offbeat proposals to offers of chances to repent, to letters that begin, `You think your show is crazy, listen to this.'''
Greenwood and wife,Susan, both natives of Vancouver, British Columbia, have little trouble coping with rainy Portland, Ore., but Greenwood's hours leave little spare time. ``There's not much time left to phone your mom,'' he said.
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Bruce Greenwood stars in "Nowhere Man" color.by CNB