The Mist

Title says is all. Modern day series can be as boring as watching water before it boils. And just when you think it will boil, someone shuts down cooking stove.

The Mist was an excellent story and great movie. The series however was extremely disappointing. The first episode was rough, did not really build up the suspense and the suspense never really gets built up. Each subsequent episode begins to degrade from there. There are some very good actors, but some of the roles are poorly cast. I did enjoy seeing Alsya Sutherland in something outside of Vikings and she does a good job with what she has to work with in the role. There are times when the story threatens to become good, but in general the pace is slow and the drama thick. It is like a soap opera moved into Stephen King land. On a plus side, while the series goes out of it's way at the expense of the plot and story to embed modern Hollywood clichés that you see in pretty much each and every movie and TV series today, at least some of these clichés are turned into bad guys. One of the few redeeming qualities, but it did have me skipping parts here and there.

The special effects are very low budget. The action is lame even for a TV series and poorly directed. It is also difficult to find anybody to like much less identify with. At times you find yourself rooting for the Mist which is not the same Mist that is portrayed in the movie. Flawed characters are one thing, but the few people you can actually like do not last long. Apparently the moral of the story is that humans do not deserve to live as each and every one of us is flawed beyond redemption. Many of the depictions are pointless and distractions and opportunities to insert action and suspense are the casualties of the poor plot development which moves like Molasses in an ice storm. Most of the "surprises" are rather predictable. One of the elements that makes King's work so interesting is you never really know. Good guys can lose or win in a King story. People do unpredictable things in King stories but their actions at least make sense in the framework of their perspective. In this series people just do things apparently without reason or cause. At points the interactions just defy all logic and you have no perspective to put them in as the characters are doing things nobody would ever do given that person's perspective. People can be cruel, can be weak, but there's always some sort of logical framework they are operating under. Even if the reasoning is flawed it at least makes sense in a way to that person and creates a trajectory. A path they will follow. In the Mist these people bounce around like a pinball machine committing actions that contradict everything they do, say and believe.

In the end you are left with a bowl of tired clichés and a plot that has no drive, no energy or even meaning. The social commentary is used like a club and offensive at best. The writer or director must truly loath themselves and by proxy all of humanity, but not even in an interesting way. The holes in the plot and the slow speed leave you with an incomprehensible soup of poorly copied movie moments changed just enough that they are not really recognizable, but also neither original or interesting. I gave this a 5 because it does have a moment here and there that is interesting, and some of the acting is quite good.

Of course this is going to be compared to the literature followed by the remake film, which leaves us with high expectations. The first episode started out brilliant and left me wanting more, it was around episode 4-5 that I started to find things dragging on with very little action. There were really fun bits of the movie that didn't make it to season 1, maybe season 2? Though I'm confident we won't see that gracing our screens anytime soon. As a standalone series it's not without it's own ideas, however due to the dragging mid season I can't recommend this, I'm giving it a 6/10 for the Mist Film lovers, however 3-4/10 for normal viewage.

Shows like The Mist and The Walking Dead are based on a very simple premise of threat (usually super/bio/natural) and the need for survival as a group in challenging circumstances. These shows can pull in good audiences, but it is impressive how frequently this simple premise cannot be executed boldly and instead runs off into a series of sub-plots that detract from the core premise until the core premise is lost. The Mist suffers this fate.

First, the premise is sound enough. The simplicity of the idea is its great attraction. The problem with this show is, like TWD the premise becomes secondary to the sub-plots and poor character decisions that then consume the show.

So, Stephen King penned 'The Mist' - it's an alternate take on 'The Fog' just taking the concept in a different direction. In this envisioning the Mist descends on a small town in the US cutting of communication and isolating the town. Within the realms of this genre, this is a suitable plot that comes with full license for the associated suspension of disbelief.

We have a good set. The weakness then is the lack of courage to execute on the core premise, instead drifting into the sub plots of the various irrational characters. If this show had been given the benefit of stronger oversight of the storyline this might not have led to the shows demise and could with the right writing have seen additional seasons tagged on.

When a writer must fall back on the stupidity of characters to carry the story then you know the series is in trouble. Even B movies fans like intelligent characters in B movies.

The Mist is a missed opportunity - a show that should have had a stronger tighter focus on the core plot. Less silly character sub plots. A clearer definition of what it was and a willingness to stay true to that.

I believe there is still very much a market for this type of a show - if only writers of sufficient quality could be found to build the episodes that build ON the core premise, not away from it.

A mist has descended upon the town of Bridgeville, Maine and something inside is killing people. Bryan Hunt in military uniform tries to warn the police but he's locked up by chief Heisel on suspicion of being intoxicated. An unstable Mia Lambert is the other prisoner. The Copeland family is split between the police station and the mall.

I do like the 2007 movie but that movie's biggest moment is its shocking ending. Presumably, that cannot be done on the TV show unless it intends to ends quickly. When it does suicides early, they're unearned emotionally and it lacks any shock value. The problem starts with the characters. None of them are likeable. Everybody has some deep dark secret or other crazy characteristics. Their actions are questionable. A guy is willy nilly letting out prisoners without authorization and that's before it gets crazy. Drawing lot is silly especially only a few people would know the location of the radio and how to use it. It makes little sense to send random strangers stumbling into the office searching for the thing and why aren't people waiting for them on the other side of the door? I know why. They would hear the gunshot and the writers needed to connect the dots no matter how ugly the line. Almost none of the characters make sense unless the mist turns them into non-sense. That's certainly possible but it would leave nobody with rooting interest. They want the girl to be that but she is too infuriating to be appealing. I don't care about anybody and I don't care about their secrets.

The show still has the creature feature aspect. It should have started with a scary horror scene at the base but it meanders around with a slow reveal of some teenage drama. Stranger Things started with a monster at the base and that show does OK. It's a standard move which this show fails to understand. The start is off-putting, boring, and tiresome. As for the creatures, the small insects come with certain issues and the show leaves some nagging questions about the logic of this world. The smoke monsters are problematic for different reason. Neither are satisfying although not bad enough to be decisive. The logic of people is so upside down that the crazy lady actually makes sense. The creature feature aspect gets morphed into body horrors territory. I can roll with all these differences if I actually cared about anybody in here.