Parallels

Found this on Netflix highly recommended based on my previous ratings of movies. Watched it. REALLY enjoyed it. Kind of like Sliders meets Lost. But here's the thing--what a total waste. Meant to be a pilot for an entire series, the "movie" so prematurely ended that not even a single mystery was explained. I'm guessing that FOX, once again, gave the axe to a promising series, but enough was filmed that someone just said, "screw it, make it a movie." The pilot is really really good. As a movie, it really really sucked. You can't just write a screenplay for a pilot and call it a movie, it doesn't work like that. It's too bad, because this is a series that I would really love to watch.

I was hoping this would become a series because there is so many possibilities.. infinite in fact, when you go with a storyline of parallel worlds.

The acting was very good. the characters were very likable and cmon you get to see constance wu from "fresh off the boat" with no accent whatsoever. :)

Ill be brief as I don't want to spoil anything but its well worth a watch.. and FOX .. please shop this to the syfy channel or something. though we may be waiting a bit now while fresh off the boat has its run...

It's pretty much Sliders. Timed jumps to other worlds, no (known) way home.

Only it's been TheCW-ed up. In Sliders you had a goofy looking gangly giant, Gimli (middle-later aged bearded professor), a middle-later aged black dude and a petite woman (some replaced later). In Parallels you have four attractive twenty-somethings. In Sliders there's techno-babble and problem solving. In Parallels you just run from stuff and have dramatic moments, usually involving your family. Sliders uses a fixed camera and dolly and whatnot. Parallels uses good ole Shaky- Cam where the camera operator has to deliberately do a bad job, even on tight shots during an exposition scene because that's just the style now.

That said, it's fine. The CW model is simple and it works well enough. And I'm a sucker for a sci-fi premise. The dialogue and situations are cheesy but not cringe inducingly so. Ronan's triangle wasn't good enough to actually put someone to sleep but hey, you could tell what they were going for. It's fine. It's totally fine.

I liked the general premise of this pilot/movie very much. That said the characters' construction was incredibly bad, most of them seemed mentally challenged. If this has aspirations as a TV series (and it has the needed basal stuff) nowadays demanding audiences want more realistic characters, they have to find writers able to deliver closer to life personas. The "we have to find mommy" is far fetched giving the reality the characters are set into and also seems directed to children, but that is barely the tip of the iceberg of the many small but hurting failures it has that could've been credible for a show in the '70, nowadays IMHO is unbearably naïve.

I really liked this concept, and the cast is solid. I think the writing is a bit forced from time to time, but that's to be expected with the material, cast, etc...overall, I enjoyed the show.

I do believe, however, that this script was clearly written to be episodic. This 'movie' feels more like an extended pilot. Obviously this entire concept is open-ended to be episodic. It's set up perfectly for it. I was very let down to find it wasn't a pilot--I actually thought I was watching a pilot all the way up until my Google searching after the 'show.' Sad. I hope they continue this idea...if they don't I think the movie should have been written differently.

I think if done correctly this could continue to be a fun show with endless possibilities...or it could be totally ruined by bad writing. I hope they pick this up and run with it, and keep it somewhat hard sci-fi.