Characters are what they do, what they choose, what they want. If you write the characters so that you don't know what the majority of them want or who's doing what or what choices can even be made (much less who's chosen what,) then the viewer doesn't know who they are. And the viewer can't care.
The characters in The Event mostly are doing strange things whose importance is unknown, solely to set up plot twists. It's not accident the most likable character is the one who has the simplest, most understandable motivation, namely, Jason Ritter's Sean. Ivan Zeljko, a very competent actor, is a cipher because you spent weeks not knowing what the hell he's doing. Laura Innes, also very competent, was also ineffective for exactly the same reason.
It's very much like the characters in the island segments of Lost, where they mostly didn't do anything and never, ever spoke to each other like rational people. Unlike Lost, the flashbacks in The Event do not show insanely melodramatic backstories where the "character" is more or less a sock puppet for vicarious fantasies. Instead, the flashbacks on The Event are still ambiguous, lest the viewer know what the hell is going on. Or at least that was the case when I gave up on it.
Also, the President in The Event should have publicized the aliens (or whatever they are,) after they teleported the plane. There is a time to avoid panic and there is a time when the situtation is too dire to keep secret. Aliens who've achieved so much already are too powerful to let work undetected. It was way past time to mobilize all resources, even at the risk of fear. Indeed, using the panic to turn the country upside down might be their only way to fight enemy technology. The whole situation in The Event is false to its internal premises, which takes a toll on suspension of disbelief, even if people don't trouble to analyze why. Without suspension of disbelief there's no caring.
