Residue

I've not seen the movie but I did check out the 3 part pilot on Netflix. Seems like the same project? I didn't realize Netflix were backing pilots but I think this is a really exciting step if they are. This show has solid foundations for a pretty great ongoing TV show and feels fresh coming out of the UK. I read the director has a background on Utopia and Misfits which makes more sense of this project's visual style and themes. I also read an article on indiewire 'How To Sell A TV Show to Netflix" http://www.indiewire.com/article/how-to-sell-a-TV-show-to-netflix- 20150401 and was pretty blown away about the journey that this took. It was a movie, and an extended TV pilot at the same time. That's pretty ballsy. I imagine the TV show plays better than the movie - there isn't really one central character you can get on board with in the way that you need to in a movie - but there is certainly a lot here to merit this project and make me want to see more. I think there is a lot of promise here for the future. A great looking, seedy, future-city, and a pretty amazing quarantine zone top my favorite things about this so far.

I'm just about never the one to complain that a movie is 'too slow'. 4 hour silent Russian epic? Sign me up! But this movie got the better of me. I'm fine with slow if there's a purpose. Letting a mood or scene sink in... letting characters establish themselves... but in Residue there were loads of scenes where nothing happened and while it established a good mood/atmosphere early on... after a while it just felt like padding. Stylish and good looking, but padding nonetheless.

No surprise then that this is a pilot for a TV show. That leads me to think it's like one of those overwritten Stephen King novels that weighs in at 500+ pages when it really could have been a short story. As it is, since there is a mystery at the core of this setup it has me thinking Lost... do I really want to keep watching for some trumped up ending that won't satisfy?

Also, the characters. If it weren't a pilot then the main character would have been one of the three main ones here. As it is they're all spread thin and none of them engage. The cop doesn't do much of anything, the photographer just stares at her picture and types in her thoughts, her public relations boyfriend is the most proactive but even he doesn't get much to do.

I came away irritated... lacking good will to continue on with the series. I just expect more drawn out stylish nonsense with no real tale to tell.

Overall the idea of this show is fantastic. People unknowingly developing supernatural abilities that cause disaster amongst the city, while a detective and journalist try to solve it is great. The only bad thing about this show is it is only 3 episodes in a single season. It is a total tease, the British always do this, they suck at television. That is why the It Crowd is only like four episodes a season. Learn how to do television seasons right you damn British! I mean the minimum for American television shows is at least eight episodes, some shows push for over twenty season which is freaking incredible. The fact that there are only three episodes in this entire first season is downright stupid. Overall I would give the show at least three more stars if they learned how to not tease the audience and at least did eight episodes per season.

Leave it to the British to take the paranormal, government conspiracies, and biological outbreaks and then find a way to make them all boring. Visuals and music are all interesting and well done, but fail to hold up this otherwise limp story. Every dialogue feels like it's going nowhere and has a anesthetic effect that leaves you so numb by the time anything interesting does happen, it is incapable of getting a reaction or emotional response out of you.

Just wanted to to say to all those reviewers that keep saying things like 'It's ambiguous,' 'It feels like nothing was resolved,' and 'I'm no wiser at the end as to what the explanation was

• That's because this is a pilot!!! As the director says:

"The thing I had envisioned was quite a long story. The movie that I was pitching them was essentially the beginning of the mythology, and with success we would have the opportunity to do more, so television sounded really exciting to me, given how it has evolved over the past several years — the novelization of television. Also, many of the networks are really getting creatively engaged with genre material, which was not always true in the early 2000s and going back."

And:

"It's really only the beginning of the story, according to Walls. "'Residue' Season 1 is really an extended pilot and should be thought of that way," she said. "Netflix don't necessarily do the Amazon- style pilot season. But 'Residue' is really more in that model where these first three chapters are live before the existence of a full season."

So now you can all stop moaning about it and trying to be clever! And get to supporting it so the rest of the story is resolved - with a full series!

http://www.indiewire.com/article/how-to-sell-a-TV-show-to-netflix- 20150401