Reply With QuoteNone of the characters are likable or engaging and I won't stick around for a mystery that they'll never solve in a "monster of the week" format.
It would work better as a miniseries or limit of 3 or 4 seasons only. As an ongoing series no.
Did anyone catch this last night? I DVR'd it as both my wife and son wanted to watch it, so we'll check it out tonight since Fringe isn't on.
It looks pretty cool though, and I see IGN's Matt Fowler gave it a freaking TEN.
http://tv.ign.com/articles/121/1219391p1.html
Interesting.
None of the characters are likable or engaging and I won't stick around for a mystery that they'll never solve in a "monster of the week" format.
It would work better as a miniseries or limit of 3 or 4 seasons only. As an ongoing series no.
I watched the Hulu full episode preview last week. I liked it a lot. Jasan Isaacs is very good in it, but that's not surprising since he's a terrific actor. I'm intrigued by the premise, but I hope the bit with the case details bleeding into each other doesn't turn into some stupid Lost thing.
I want to watch it, but I know my wife doesn't. Thus, I will probably wait for the end of the season and then watch the whole thing on a binge.
I dunno if I liked it as much as the Lone Star pilot, but this was real good. Seems like they went a bit overboard in making the characters too likeable though, after the criticism that no one on the creator's show was sympathetic.
It would certainly work better as a six to twelve episode miniseries, but what are you going to do?
I just watched it and enjoyed it. You're right about Isaacs--I first noticed him in Event Horizon and have enjoyed him ever since--but I suspect the case details are a result of something like the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics and that the lead character's consciousness is moving between them somehow.Originally Posted by Telefrog
What does it say about me that I think the only satisfying conclusion of this series would be for them both to be dead?
I liked it - but how the series progresses depends on how they handle the bizarre elements. I think the less they move that along, the better. Just slowly reveal it, and keep it consistent. TV shows like this kill themselves by over explaining too much.
Expect that bit to be rocky. Just anticipate that coming and set your expectations accordingly. This is the showrunner's first shot at running a real show (his last one was canceled after two), and he's going to end up screwing something up.
Myself - I think that this is too complicated to be a successful show on broadcast by an order of magnitude or two, but on NBC that might not make much of a difference.
I decided to hold off watching this show until the end of the season. More likely than not, it's going to get cancelled and have no chance to come to a satisfying conclusion. In that case, nothing lost by just waiting and watching the episodes during the summer.
I watched it yesterday and really liked it. It's too bad it's not being billed as something like a Fringe, so it could be moving at a crazy break-neck speed and be some crazy multi-universe thing.
It's instead more likely HE is the one in a coma and the ENTIRE THING is a construct, though.
Hopefully the showrunner already saw Life on Mars and will do something more interesting... like having him actually be crazy and one is a dream.
I really appreciated the acting, cast, and sets for this show -- it was very well put together.
I don't have high hopes for it, because it seems like a lot to ask these days that a show not fuck itself over after a few episodes.
I love how the main character is so self aware in this. They come at the weirdness head on and ask direct questions, rather than simply being a thematic device.
But the reading-the-Constitution test drove me nuts. I've done the same test, multiple times, and passed just fine. (Yeah, I often dream about lucid dreaming -- weird, I guess). You can pass because you just think you read the thing -- the only bit in your brain that needs to be flipped is the check afterwards -- did I just read this thing? So you think you must not be dreaming but then of course, you wake up, and realize you weren't really reading it.
Either that or I'm actually living in two different universes. =)
What would be neat though is if at some point they used the information transfer between the two worlds to freak the heck out of BOTH psychologist. Put the main character in a room. Ask him a question he couldn't possible know. He sleeps, next time he waked he knows the answer because he looked it up in the other world. Sweet objective evidence.
There are tricks that work for me. Find an analog clock. Look at it, then look somewhere else and then look back at it.
If you're dreaming you'll see that the time changes at every attempt.
One of the coolest things about the pilot was the use of lighting to indicate which of the two realities he was in. The wife-alive reality is lit warmly, with yellows. The son-alive reality is lit coolly, with blues. At a glance, you can tell where he is, in addition to the elastic band trick.
Spoiler: Cool scene
I believe that's the color correction and not the lighting. For the pilot they went back in and heightened the reds for the red reality and the blues for the green reality so that you'd have a visual cue as to where you are. It's a neat trick, but I think they might be overestimating the bulk of the audience they hope to grab.
I finally caught up with this On Demand and loved it.
The pilot is worth watching even if the rest of the series is dead on arrival. That was one of the finest pieces of television I can remember in some time. I hope they can pull off a full series based on this premise but, even if they don't, the pilot itself was a perfect little short-story.
Episode 1 is currently available for free on the iTunes Store. At least in Canada and the US. So, download away if you haven't seen it yet!
Episode 1 was ok, but its not really anything like Fringe... :/
I will keep watching , it might get awesome.
Next season the two universes have a secret war. Then they build a bridge between them. It will be sweet!
Huh. Either they're abandoning the pretense he might be dreaming in the second episode, or the main characters is unlike every other person on the planet and
Spoiler:
Its a dream - doesn't have to make any logical sense :P
I like that they are fully exploring the possibilities of his peculiar situation so early on - as for his meta-physical situation, the longer the series goes without explaining it, the better it will be. But I think they'll have to cut back on the psychologist bits a tad to use them solely as a framing device. Little goes a long way there.
No, but it needs to make dream sense. And certain storytelling methods just do not happen in dreams.
Haven't you ever had a dream where you're somewhere, but it's not you, it's somebody else, but you're like in their head, and it's you but it's also not you?
Far out, man.
Consider it an audience preview of what his subconscious is cooking up.
Or, it happened in reality reality. And there are no dreams.
Much, much better than episode two of Lone Star; not sure I liked it as much as the pilot, but it was still very good. Did they have the graphical transitions between worlds in the first episode? I swear that wasn't there, and it felt a little jarring seeing it here.
I don't know how I feel about the reveal at the end—it feels a tad out of character and silly; it definitely wasn't imbued with the same sense of gravitas as the other parts of the show.
If you're enjoying this show, trust me and get this book: "The Wayward Mind" by Guy Claxton.
I watched the 2nd and didn't understand well the reveal at the end.
But it seems likely that from now on something of the cases will go to build the greater case about the incident.
I just don't understand why they speak as if both wife and son have died there.
That suggests to me that the main character is a Unreliable Narrator. What we experience as him experiencing two distinct worlds is possibly a creation by his broken psyche in both instances.
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