Station Eleven

Station Eleven (now 5 episodes in) is a slow burn, surreal, and enigmatic. It's clearly not going to be for everyone, but any review under 5 stars isn't doing justice to what is going on with this show.

There's a slightly ominous aspect to it that provides a foil for its seeming lack of coherence (which is really only surface deep). It's coherence lies in the themes it follows rather than any fixed and characterised point of view.

This is a very carefully constructed and intelligent piece with a haunting sound track and an at times brilliant interplay between characters left traumatised by their experience of a world coming apart at the seams and their non-volitional survival - in various ways they are all in shock. There are some quite sensational performances from some of the cast, but they also have some great material to work with.

This is intelligent and thought provoking TV, delivered with passion.

I had to write this just because of the poor reviews on here. Judging from the majority of these reviews, the basic person's attention span is pitiful, at best. No one cares about your quick consumption instant gratification society or your opinions on real art. Real art is thoughtful and unapologetic, it doesn't ask for your acceptance. That being said, I think this series is thoughtful and impactful. It's only made more powerful by Hiro Murai's choices in directing. I didn't know what to expect coming into this series, but I ended up enjoying it tremendously. The premise hits extremely close to home and the main characters and plot are interwoven into an extremely interesting plot. I haven't read the source material, but I love the idea of how the book itself is a plot point. I don't like spoiling things with reviews, but I will say that most of these reviews are from people with a lack of patience. If you can't appreciate a slow burn or a story driven by it's characters more than action or petty drama, you won't enjoy this. The acting is pretty well done, but the show does take it's time revealing details. I felt like the payoff was worth it, though you'll have to be the deciding factor in that.

Himish Patel and David Wilmot are both exceptional in this. While the stories of the initial collapse of society are interesting, the silliness of the "Travelling Symphony" really detracts from the the show and really ruin it for me. I was drawn into to flashback stories and then annoyed every time I had to endure the present story line with the Symphony.

I managed to last through 5 full episodes, but I kept nodding off due to the glacial pace of this series. The metaphor of watching paint dry might be applicable, but the paint will finally be dry in an hour or two, while this just seems to go on forever.

NYfree says it gets better by Episode 7. Well, it's only 10 episodes long, so it looks like it must be 60% filler. If it was cereal, it would be banned from the grocery shelves.

Still early, but even after Covid I'm still a sucker for a good post apocalyptic series... so far it's definitely kept me interested and seems like it's going to pick up more as the season progresses.