Weekend Watching: The OA

There are certain things that I know I should like, but I just can't. Like sushi (not cosmopolitan enough). Or hiking (not outdoorsy enough). Or craft beer (not hipster enough). The OA falls under that category. The premise is this: a young woman, Prairie Johnson, makes a dramatic reappearance in middle America after disappearing for seven years. Her parents are anxious to welcome her back to her old life, but there's something very different about her this time around. For one thing, she used to be blind but now can see. For another, Prairie insists that she be called The OA. Mystery surrounds this woman and soon she attracts a ragtag group of followers who are fascinated by her storytelling abilities.

I could go on, but I'll just stop there. You know, dear readers, that I am a fan of this genre. But in order for a high concept show like this one to work, a viewer needs to be able to buy into that concept (or even just understand what it is) by the time the first episode concludes. The OA doesn't provide any such narrative structure. Without a story core to hold it together, we at least need some snappy dialogue or chemistry between characters to stay with it. But, the pacing of The OA is slow. Glacial. And, I can handle slowly paced television (Rectify is one of my favorites!).

It's really a shame because The OA plays with a lot of themes that historians of religion appreciate. The idea that a story can change the world, change history, and change the hearer in a fundamental way has rich potential. And, The OA herself - a fragile woman with mystical powers and reluctant but mesmerized followers - almost makes me want to watch a season 2. Am I missing some way to frame The OA that will help me recognize its greatness? You tell me.

Weekend Watching: Travelers

"We, the last and broken remnants, vow to undo the errors of our ascendants, to make the earth whole, the lost - unlost, at peril of our own birth"

Time Traveler's version of a Hippocratic Oath in Travelers

It's a classic dystopian sci-fi premise: humans in the future ruined the earth and it's up to an intrepid time traveler(s) to set the world right years before it goes wrong. In Travelers, they do it by using tech from the future to digitally override the brains of people in the 21st century who are about to die. But is it moral to override someone who is about to die, but is not quite dead yet? And when do you know that you've saved the world? What if saving the world means losing your very existence? The characters in Travelers wrestle with these questions as they work to redeem the world, one mission from the future at a time.

Travelers is theoretically right up my alley, but I'll admit that I was slow to appreciate the show's charms. Its stars are a bit too inexplicably attractive (which for some reason works for me on CW shows but doesn't work elsewhere); it stars Eric McCormack, who is a good actor, but I will always see him as Will from Will and Grace; it's also pretty humorless... I can handle bleak (in fact, some of my favorite shows are uber-depressing... ahem, Battlestar Galactica), but bleak is only bearable with a few laughs every now and then.

The final episodes pick up the pace, however, and they start asking some better-than-run-of-the-mill sci-fi questions. Such as, where and what is God in this future world? Does fixing the future eliminate free will? How do we know we can trust the powers that be in the future? And what would it take for the future people to become so attached to the present that they forget their vow to undo the errors of their ascendants? In the end, I found that the quality of Travelers increased along the way. And the questions they asked made the binge-investment worthwhile.

See You in the New Year!

Friends, if you follow me on Instagram, you know that I've had a family emergency that has taken me offline for the past couple of weeks. I'm going to be spending the rest of 2016 with the ones I love the most, but you can expect to see me back in action with more commentary and reviews on bingeworthy classics and new winter shows in the New Year!