Brief Story Line
Famous romance fiction novelist Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn - Bad Boys: Ride or Die, Whitney TV series etc) was just finishing her book tour when suddenly all the people around her were having seizures and somehow their brains became connected with one another after it was over. Carol later found out the whole thing was due to alien virus and affected the people in the whole world, with only 12 other persons immune to the effect.
Carol who refused to accept this condition and wanted the world to return to normal, tried to cooperate with the other 12. Unfortunately only one who was interested, a man who lived in Paraguay named Manousos Oviedo (Carlos-Manuel Vesga - Amor Sincero telenovela, Loving Pablo etc). Meanwhile the people who were now connected by the process called "joining" tried their best to make the lives of the unaffected more comfortable, including assigning a chaperone for Carol, a woman named Zosia (Karolina Wydra - Wicked City TV series, A Score to Settle etc).
So what would happen to Carol? You could find out more in the first season.
End of Brief Story Line
Well that was a bit unexpected. When I read all the really positive comments and also the brief synopsis of the series, I thought this would be an intense and suspenseful sci-fi series. And the first episode certainly lived up to my expectation. Despite a rather different tone in the second episode, I still thought it was interesting and intriguing. But I already had feeling it would be more of a drama, which turned out to be correct as it slowly progressed with focus on what the lead character Carol was experiencing during the early days and how she coped with it.
Now this is the part where I felt a little bit disappointed. I do not have any problem with the dramatic and sometime a bit dark comedic situation arising from this situation. Unfortunately this was not what I signed up for when I decided to give the series a try. Through out the remaining episodes, I watched it with the hope it would get more suspenseful. And frankly the end of episode 5 seemed promising, only to be abruptly halted in the subsequent episode. The 7th episode was quite interesting with a bit of different perspective view, but the 8th episode went in the direction that I did not really like with a really predictable way how it would end.
The first season had a total of 9 episodes which had an ending that might excite those who view the series positively. For me though, I did not want to get my hopes up cause I have strong feeling it is going to be just like what happened between the 5th to 6th episode. Reading some of the general audience comments, it looked like the first episode was the best but plenty felt disappointed or lose interest beyond that. However critics (no surprise there) were very much impressed with the series with most praising Rhea Seehorn's performance, the writing and directing. On these areas, I quite agreed with them. But again, I would have been more appreciative if this is what I was looking for so I am more inclined with the audience comments.
The series was created by Vince Gilligan who was very well known as creator of critically acclaimed Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul which would explain the high praise of this one. From what I read, it was already agreed for 2 seasons and Gilligan had plan for 4 seasons, so it's good for those wanting to find out what happens next. The cast actually did great job here with Rhea Seehorn in particular receiving several awards nominations. Other than those names above, few who had recurring roles were Miriam Shor (Younger TV series, Hedwig and the Angry Inch etc) as Carol's manager & wife Helen, Samba Schutte (Our Flag Means Death TV series etc) as one of the other unaffected named Koumba Diabate, Menik Gooneratne as another unaffected named Laxmi and several others in minor capacity.
Overall this might be a really wonderful series in the eyes of critics and audience who are looking for high quality writing and acting with unique story. But people who are more interested in the sci-fi element and the "save the world" premise like me would most likely find this less interesting. As for the originality that people were praising, I find it to be not exactly correct, since the "hive" thing was already told in Star Trek series with the Borg faction (you can find out more on this on the internet). So if you like drama with some powerful performance from the cast combined with a bit of dark comedy and sci-fi element in the background, then I have no doubt you would enjoy this. However if what you prefer is more intense sci-fi series, I think this would not be too satisfying. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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