Adapted from the novel Pines by Blake Crouch, Wayward Pines is written by Chad Hodge and executive produced by M. Night Shyamalan. When Agent Ethan Burke arrives in Wayward Pines looking for his lost partners, it’s immediately apparent that something strange is going on: There’s a friendly bartender (Juliette Lewis) whose existence no one else acknowledges. Burke quickly finds one of his former partners (Carla Gugino), but she’s happily married with a new name. There’s a local sheriff (Terrence Howard) giving him a hard time and a psychiatrist (Toby Jones) insisting there’s something wrong with his brain.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given Shyamalan’s involvement, there’s a truly epic twist awaiting viewers in Wayward Pines. But unlike in Twin Peaks, which made its big reveal in the middle of its second season before stumbling to an awkward and seemingly unplanned end, Wayward Pines already has a solid ending in mind. In theory, this is a brilliant storytelling model for Fox: Draw the mystery out just long enough to reel viewers in, then satisfy them with a bombshell that leads to a proper conclusion, all in a miniseries that boasts an impressive cast because the actors don’t have to be locked into six-season deals.

But Wayward Pines is airing in the doldrums of summer and will almost certainly debut to low ratings as a result. Its cast is filled with familiar faces, but not too many current stars—in fact, Howard feels like the biggest name because his work on Empire has catapulted him back into stardom. In many ways, Wayward Pines feels like a cut-rate True Detective, mimicking the style of the prestige cable miniseries but not its quality. The production is slick, and Shyamalan’s visual flourishes in the pilot help, but the writing is facile and the plotting non-existent: Most scenes feature Dillon’s character bursting into someone’s office demanding answers, and getting nothing but pleasant smiles and vague, velvety threats in return.

The question remains whether viewers will want to wait several episodes for the shocking twist and deal with Dillon’s grumbling trips around town in the meantime—like so many Twin Peaks knock-offs, Wayward Pines makes the mistake of assuming a mystery is what’s needed to propel the drama. Twin Peaks’ genius was that it played like a skewed, nighttime soap opera, down to the synth score and a story that was heavy on love triangles. Twin Peaks was a high-school caper, a domestic drama, and a cop story all in one, while Wayward Pines has barely enough going on to function just as a cop story.

Still, there’s an undeniable appeal to the mystery-box approach, no matter how many times it has been abused in the past—the appeal of Lost or Alias lay in the chase, not the reward. Some miniseries have discovered this during their supposedly limited runs, the most recent example being CBS’s Under the Dome, which was supposed to be a straightforward adaptation of Stephen King’s book, but was enough of a ratings hit to get picked up for a second (and now third) season. As a result, Under the Dome’s many elements of intrigue (purple alien eggs and butterflies and time travel) have been dragged out past the point of plausibility, but while the show’s quality has plummeted, its ratings have not.