Brief Story Line
Jason Dessen (Joel Edgerton - Red Sparrow, Thirteen Lives etc) was a physics professor who was living a modest but happy life with his wife Daniela (Jennifer Connelly - Top Gun: Maverick, A Beautiful Mind etc) and their teenage son Charlie (Oakes Fegley - Pete's Dragon, The War with Grandpa etc). One night after celebrating with his best friend Ryan Holder (Jimmi Simpson - Westworld TV series, Unhinged etc) for winning the Pavia awards, Jason was kidnapped by a mysterious person.
When he woke up, Jason found himself to be in another universe where he was thought to be the missing brilliant scientist working together with investor Leighton Vance (Dayo Okeniyi - Fresh, The Hunger Games etc) and psychiatrist Amanda Lucas (Alice Braga - Hypnotic, Elysium etc) on a mysterious project. With very little knowledge about how and why he was somehow warped into this universe, Jason had to find ways to return home, even if it would endanger his life and time was against him.
So what would happen to Jason and his family? You could find out in this series.
End of Brief Story Line
To be honest, I was curious when I read the brief synopsis of the series, but then I caught a glimpse of the early trailer and did not feel it to be exciting enough. Probably that was the reason I kept this series in my To Watch list but not exactly the priority. Anyway after watching the first episode, I immediately regretted for not doing it earlier cause the series was way too interesting. I was hooked by it and could not stop watching till the third episode where it was already getting late and had to continue the next day.
Although it felt a bit draggy in the middle, the final third was pretty amazing. I had some guess on how this series would end up, but then came the 8th episode where it totally blew my mind. Something surprising that I did not see coming which made me highly anticipating the conclusion, as it definitely would not be as straight forward as I thought. Frankly the ending was quite satisfying for me as it intelligently set up for a really interesting second season. And yes, the series has indeed by renewed though not too sure when it would be released.
The series was based on the 2016 novel of the same title, written by Blake Crouch. He also served as the executive producer and showrunner for the series. I read a little about the novel itself and it would seem that the first season was following closely with it, but there was no subsequent books. Hence the second season would be a rather unchartered territory and should be exciting how they plan to continue the story. Oh funny thing, there was another 2015 series with exactly the same title but it had a completely different tale. So this series was not a remake and had no relation at all with that one.
In general, the cast were pretty good in their various roles. I like the performance of Joel Edgerton and Jimmi Simpsons. Aside from the names I mentioned above, there were several recurring characters like Daniela's best friend Blair Caplan (Amanda Brugel - Sex After Kids etc), Detective Jamie Mason (Kate Eastman) and few others. Actually I was surprised that Amanda Brugel was not part of the main cast considering she appeared in more than half of the 9 episodes. Btw, the duration was between 46-59 minutes including a quite stylish opening scenes. My personal favorite was definitely the 8th episode due to reasons I mentioned above, and I also like the season finale.
For sci-fi fans like myself, I was really enjoying this series as it was mind bending and sometimes quite thought provoking too. It was well received by critics and audiences alike. No wonder it was greenlit for the renewal. So if you are interested in the kind of series exploring multiverse in a dramatic fashion affecting normal person and family, then you would definitely enjoy this one. But if you think this will be of action genre, then you won't be happy with the series as there was pretty much drama involved. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment