Forget ‘Twin Peaks,’ Ben Affleck’s Forgotten 7-Episode Mystery Was Ahead of Its Time

Image via Universal, Everett Collection Published Nov 6, 2026, 10:44 PM EST Amanda M. Castro is a Network TV writer at Collider and a New York–based journalist whose work has appeared in Newsweek, where she is an Associate Editor, and The U.S. Sun, where she previously served as a Senior Consumer Reporter. She specializes in network television coverage, delivering sharp, thoughtful analysis of long-running procedural hits and ambitious new dramas across broadcast TV. At Collider, Amanda explores character arcs, storytelling trends, and the cultural impact of network series that keep audiences tuning in week after week. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Amanda is bilingual and holds a degree in Communication, Film, and Media Studies from the University of New Haven. Sign in to your Collider account Ben Affleck is having quite the moment on Netflix. His latest thriller, Animals, has held the No. 1 spot on the streamer's global English-language movie chart for four consecutive weeks, pulling in another 4.7 million views and 8.4 million hours watched between October 26 and November 1, 2026. But long before his latest streaming success, Affleck tried his hand at something completely different: creating one of network television's strangest mystery series. In 2002, Affleck and his producing partner Sean Bailey co-created Push, Nevada, a surreal mystery about a mild-mannered IRS agent who stumbles into a desert town filled with corruption, cryptic clues, and slow-dancing strangers. It sounded like Twin Peaks meets The X-Files — until ABC added one wild twist: Viewers could win a million dollars by solving the mystery themselves. The result was a show too ambitious, too strange, and too ahead of its time to survive more than seven episodes. Inside 'Push, Nevada,' Ben Affleck’s Surreal Mystery Series Push, Nevada followed Jim Prufrock (Derek Cecil), an accountant who receives a mysterious fax suggesting embezzlement at the Versailles Casino. When he heads to Push — a nowhere town drenched in neon and paranoia — he discovers that its residents haven’t filed a tax return since 1985 and that an ominous company, Watermark LLC, seems to control everything from the police to the local dive bar. Oddballs populated the noir-ish mystery: Scarlett Chorvat’s Mary, a “Slo-dancer” warning Prufrock to get out while he still can; Jon Polito’s corrupt casino boss; and Armand Assante’s slick criminal known only as “Mr. Smooth.” Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Netflix Character Would Be Your Best Friend? Dustin · Emily · Wednesday · Gi-hun Some friends drag you out of the house. Some sit with you on the worst night of your life. Netflix has written both, plus the one who tells you the truth you have been avoiding all week. Answer eight quick questions about how you actually do friendship, and find out which of them was always going to end up in your corner. 🧢Dustin(Stranger Things) 🗼Emily(Emily in Paris) 🕷️Wednesday(Wednesday) 🟢Gi-hun(Squid Game) FIND YOUR BEST FRIEND → 01 How do you usually end up making a new friend? The origin story says a lot about the friendship that follows it. AWe got loud about the same obsession and never stopped. BThey invited me somewhere before we had properly met. CWe bonded over disliking exactly the same thing. DThey noticed I was struggling and stayed with me. NEXT QUESTION → 02 What is a perfect Saturday with your best friend? Friendship is mostly built out of very ordinary hours. AA ridiculous plan neither of us should attempt. BSomewhere new, photographed heavily, ending very late. CSomewhere quiet, few people, zero small talk. DSomething simple, and a conversation that actually matters. NEXT QUESTION → 03 You call them at two in the morning. What happens? This is the real test of a friendship, and everybody knows it. AThey are already putting their shoes on. BThey answer instantly and turn it into a plan. CThey answer and say something unflattering and true. DThey listen for an hour and never check the time. NEXT QUESTION → 04 What do you want from them when you are clearly wrong? The best friendships are the ones that survive being corrected. ASupport first. We can review the mistake later. BA relentlessly positive reframe of the entire disaster. CThe blunt version. Do not soften it for me. DPatience, and no judgment about how I got here. NEXT QUESTION → 05 What do your friends actually value about you? The friend you attract says something about the friend you are. AI am all in, always, about everything. BI can turn almost any situation into a good time. CI say the thing nobody else in the room will. DI look after whoever is having the worst day. NEXT QUESTION → 06 You have a falling out. How does it go? How a friendship repairs itself matters more than how it breaks. ALoudly, briefly, then back to normal by Tuesday. BThey apologise first, enthusiastically, with a gift. CCold silence, then one dry joke that fixes everything. DWe talk until we both understand what actually happened. NEXT QUESTION → 07 What do you actually need a best friend for? Everybody is missing something. The right friend fills that gap. ATo make my life bigger than it would be alone. BTo push me out of the house and into my own life. CTo catch me when I start lying to myself. DTo be the person who never gave up on me. NEXT QUESTION → 08 Ten years from now, what keeps the two of you close? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides who you get. AWe would still drop everything for each other, instantly. BWe still make plans, and we still actually go. CWe still cut through each other's nonsense in one sentence. DThey stood by me once when it cost them something. REVEAL MY BEST FRIEND → The Group Chat Has Spoken Your Best Friend Is…Four Netflix characters, four completely different ways of showing up for somebody. This is the one who fits how you actually do friendship, and what having them in your life would be like. Dustin HendersonYou do not do friendship at half volume, and neither does he. What you want is somebody who says yes to the plan before you have finished describing the plan. Dustin is the friend the entire show runs on: loyal past the point of sense, enthusiastic about everything, and incapable of leaving anybody behind. You have the same instinct. Your friendships are loud, specific and slightly ridiculous, and they last for decades because of it. He is also the one person who would take your strangest interest completely seriously, which is far rarer than it sounds. You would have a group chat. It would never once be quiet. Emily CooperYou are the friend who makes things happen, and so is she. Together you would be mildly exhausting to everyone around you and completely delighted with yourselves. Emily treats an ordinary Tuesday as something that could be turned into an occasion, which is either the best or the worst quality in a friend depending on your energy levels. You share her refusal to sit still. Neither of you has ever accepted a night in when something was happening somewhere else. She is far more loyal than people give her credit for. She defends her friends loudly, publicly, and occasionally before checking the facts. She would post the photo without asking. You would forgive her, because it is a very good photo. Wednesday AddamsYou have no patience for pleasant lies, and she has no ability to tell them. What looks like coldness from the outside is the most reliable friendship on this list. Wednesday never says a kind thing she does not mean, which makes the rare ones count for an enormous amount. You would rather be told the truth than be made comfortable. She is constitutionally incapable of offering you anything else. Underneath all of it she is ferociously protective. She simply refuses to make a performance out of caring. Do not expect a birthday message. Do expect her to ruin anyone who wrongs you. Seong Gi-hunYou look after whoever is having the worst day. So does he. It is the least strategic way to move through the world and the best possible quality in a friend. Gi-hun is not the strongest player in Squid Game, or the cleverest. He is the one who keeps choosing to protect somebody else, over and over, at genuine cost to himself. You have the same instinct. You notice who is struggling and you stay with them, long after anybody would blame you for leaving. He is a flawed friend, and that is part of why it lands. He lets people down, then comes back and tries again, which is more than most manage. He would give you his last chance and never once mention that he had done it. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ It looked incredible, with cinematography by Jim Denault, known for Boys Don’t Cry, and a moody palette of reds, golds, and shadows. Critics compared its tone and aesthetic directly to David Lynch’s Twin Peaks — from the quirky characters to the eerie score and slightly stilted dialogue. But while Lynch’s small-town surrealism invited obsession, Push, Nevada asked for something even stranger: participation. How 'Push, Nevada' Became TV’s Strangest Experiment in Audience Participation Each episode contained hidden clues — web addresses, code words, even on-screen numbers — leading viewers closer to a real-life prize of $1,045,000. Fans could follow the story across fake websites, emails, and even physical mailers in what producers dubbed “the three-ball theory” of engagement: viewers could wade in, swim, or dive deep. The experiment made Push, Nevada one of the earliest examples of transmedia storytelling on network TV. Unfortunately, it also made it unwatchable for casual audiences. The mystery was dense, the tone self-serious, and the clues often so obvious (highlighted in red boxes during reruns) that the whole thing felt like homework. Competing against CSI and Will & Grace, Push, Nevada was canceled after seven episodes — though ABC still had to finish the contest legally. The winner, New Jersey native Mark Nakamoto, solved the final puzzle and claimed the million-dollar prize, but the show itself vanished into cult TV history. Today, Push, Nevada feels like a bizarre artifact from the early 2000s — part prestige mystery, part ARG, part marketing stunt. However, despite its flaws, it accurately predicted how audiences would one day crave deeper, more interactive storytelling through shows, websites, and games. Release Date 2002 - 2002-00-00 Cast Derek Cecil James A. Prufrock Scarlett Chorvat Mary Sloman