Talk:Seddie/@comment-1976613-20150522160922

So, going into this show I had my expectations extremely tempered based on the previews and reviews I read, and after the first episode I find this show is fundamentally and possibly irreperably flawed. There are only 6 episodes of the season, and they took the absolute worst approach to the first episode. They introduced so many characters, too many characters all at once, and had their parents/family/everyone who isn't under 22 die almost immediately. None of the main characters are fleshed out and developed enough to care about, and they won't ever be, so you don't feel any sort of compassion towards them when everything goes wrong.

Each character has exactly one dimension, and they play to that one dimension only. There is Wiley, the pregnant minister's daughter with no faith, there's Adam the smart guy, there's the two guys who basically only exist to be criminals, there's the evil rich man (who for some reason isn't dead even though by the end of the first episode over half the town is), the prisoners who seem to have nothing to do with anything and were introduced for no reason and the law-abiding farmer. That's all they are to me, more than half of them I don't remember their names, and now I'm supposed to care about them and what happens? Why?

In terms of the political/social aspect, I find it to be clunky and heavy-handed. We've all seen the classic government conspiracy trope and it has been done to death. The writers aren't blowing anyone's mind nor are they offering particularly insightful or biting comentary on society. We have the rich who are evil, the prisoners and the prison guards who have no morals, the poor who are just trying to take advantage of the system (which is a horrible message by the way) and then Adam, Wiley, and the farmer, who seem to just be there. I'm actually pretty saddened by how simplistic the social class message is in this show, as well as the anti-government/anti-religious angle. I'm usually completely on board for an anti-government story, but it has to be well done, and this isn't.

In terms of acting, it's clear that the only person who even showed up was Jennette. And of course she would, she was the actress Netflix targeted to get people in America to watch it. The range of every other actor seemed to run the gammut from sullen to stoic and nothing in between.

It lived up to my expectations, as it was mediocre, but the one thing it did do is make me at least curious enough about what this mysterious force killing everyone is, so I'll probably watch the second episode.