The Lost Room

I saw the trailer for this TV-mini on some obscure satellite channel and thought, hey that's a cool looking movie. I'm a huge sci-fi fan so naturally I had to see this. To my surprise it wasn't a feature film but a TV-mini series. That sort of put my high hopes into lower gear since quite a few sci-fi mini's has been either low budget looking or plain simply bad.

Well, I started to watch and I was slowly but surely sucked in and saw the entire set from start to finish. Yep 4½ hours non-stop watching. I just couldn't stop.

The story is so cleverly written that I was (and am) simply amazed. I have seen it four times now and every time I see something new or find new answers that I didn't see before. To come up with this kind of story and use it so well must come from some tremendously inventive minds. Everyday items with some special power that came to be because....well you just have to see for yourself.

The cast performance is top notch. I especially like the performance of Kevin Pollack as Karl Kreuzfeld, Dennis Christopher as Ruber and the absolutely superb, paranoid but believable performance of Ewen Bremmer as Harold Stritzke. Character development is good and even the shorter guest episode appearances like Ewen Bremmers are handled very well.

The effects and production design fits the story very well and are nicely executed. Add to this a well written score and you have a winner. I'm really, really glad they made this into a mini series and not a feature film because the running time is needed. It doesn't feel like it's dragging or boring anywhere but rather every minute is used wisely. It starts slowly and builds and adds to itself in an even pace.

Had they made this into a feature film I'm afraid it would probably have been destroyed by too much effects or too much action. Or even worse, the story been dumbed down to please audiences.

If you like clever sci-fi drama with nice twists and turns and a creative original story you absolutely have to see this. It beats soo many big budget movies at so many levels.

Really great stuff!

While investigating a weird murder case in a pawn shop, Detective Joe Miller (Peter Krause) finds that a key opens any door to a mysterious hotel room in another dimension. Joe´s daughter Anna Miller (Elle Fanning), who is his pride and joy, is kidnapped by the criminal Weasel (Roger Bart) that proposes to swap the girl per the key. However, Anna flees and uses the key to escape from the criminals that retrieve the key. Weasel resets the door and Anna is lost in another dimension. Now her father learns that there are sects and people from the underworld using the power of the mysterious objects from the room and he teams up with Jennifer Bloom (Julianna Margulies) from The Legion and the millionaire and collector Karl Kreutzfeld (Kevin Pollak) expecting to rescue his beloved daughter.

"The Lost Room" is mini-series divided in six chapters - The Key, The Clock, The Comb, The Box, The Eye and the Occupant - with a fascinating premise. The story is a sort of "The Twilight Zone" with a good cast. Unfortunately there are many flaws in the conclusion that does not close many situations and forget important characters. Maybe the intention of the producers would be another season that was never done. Anyway the intriguing and original plot entertains. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

I am thoroughly enthralled by what this show has to offer. I had the benefit of catching a repeat of the first few episodes back to back, and I am hooked beyond belief.

What stuns me is that everything seems to have a purpose behind it. At first, it appears to be an adventure that is random for the sake of being random. However, as the show unravels, there is a strange sense of mystery that would make Sir Arthur Conan Doyle proud. Shows like Lost have failed to grab my attention simply because I felt as if the writers were trying to make a 5-show plot thread last for fifty.

To be honest, I don't believe I've been this hooked on a show since Firefly. The main character could have easily been played by Nathan Fillion to the same effect of character. I hesitate to make any more comparisons; I'd hate for people to think this show is a hybrid of this or that. Something about it makes it completely unique.

I'm looking forward to where this show goes. I actually believe that history will remember this show as a benchmark for things to come.

I was surprised when I checked the credits of this miniseries to see that it had not been based on a book. It feels like something based on a book, because it has such a complete and detailed mythology and a feeling of back story that is rare in the work of screenwriters. The Lost Room has created a very complete world for its characters and for its central premise.

It also, like a movie based on a book, feels like you can only get the full story by reading the book. One is left with a lot unknown. For the most part this is fine, but I don't care for the fact that at the end you really don't understand .... well .... anything. Although I'll admit that even though I was worried that this would be the case, it didn't bother me all that much, because the story had good forward propulsion and a resolution that was emotionally satisfying although not intellectually so.

Since this isn't from a book, my guess would be they're considering this for a TV series, both because some threads seem to have been left loose on purpose and because it does feel like there's more you could mine out of the material. I hope I'm right about that, I would like to see more. But if it is a series, they'd better come up with some answers.

Though I like fantasy and SF, I have to admit to being fondest of rule-based fantasy, like that of Tim Powers -- as a reader or viewer, you have an idea of what's possible and impossible, despite the supernatural elements of the story. Fantasy without rules is far less satisfactory, since characters in those stories can do whatever the writer arbitrarily decides they can do (or can't), and as a result, the writing is lazier.

"The Lost Room" is all about rules and the characters who find creative ways to abuse them. (Tim Powers fans would like it, I'm sure.) The writers have come up with cool supernatural powers for a host of innocuous looking objects (combs, pens, cards, bus tickets, watches, a key, etc.) Each object has a power and rules to govern them. Many of the powers don't seem that nifty, until you see how creatively they are used. And, along those lines, virtually every scene contains a fun, "Hey, that's a good idea!" move, and they tend to come at you faster than you can anticipate them if you aren't taping the show and hitting pause.

What's best about this is that the writers stick with it all the way. Many of these shows go David Lynch/Twin Peaks on us, setting us up with the promise of great stuff to come, and then disappointing us in a big way later. (Dean Koontz novels always seem to fall apart in this way, at least for me.) "The Lost Room" keeps up its promises all the way to the very end, which, like the rest of the miniseries, is clever and interesting and makes perfect sense in hindsight, given the rules.

I honestly can't think of the last time I saw a miniseries or movie of this ilk that pulled off its ending this well. It's a darned good miniseries, and I sincerely hope it becomes a full-blown series, as apparently is being considered.