3 episodes deep into Station 11, I used to be furious. Furious but additionally extraordinarily bored.
Now not most effective had I fallen asleep looking to watch the display (two times) however I would additionally briefly grown pissed off with its self indulgence.
From the outset, Station 11 is a display that spells out grand ambitions in transparent phrases.
A post-apocalyptic HBO Max mini-series set within the instant aftermath of fatal viral flu, Station 11 is a display a few fictional pandemic, shot, produced and launched right through an precise pandemic. However in lots of ways in which pandemic is subservient and unimportant. Station 11 is a display about issues. About large concepts and topics. It is a display about survival. About trauma. About taking shelter within the transitive energy of artwork and the connective tissue of our shared humanity.
In different phrases: Urgh.
This can be a display that opens with King Lear. A display that makes flagrant use of Shakespeare as a story and framing tool, but additionally has the goddamn gall to put itself on the centre of a grand literary canon.
As soon as once more: Urgh. The largest urgh I will muster.
3 episodes deep I jumped into one in every of CNET’s many Slack channels and unloaded at the display to my coworkers. It was once self indulgent. It was once uninteresting. It took itself manner too severely. It was once top by itself provide. It was once basically fallacious compared to a display like, say, Yellowjackets – which masked its personal topics of trauma beneath the guise of a crafty and compelling thriller field display.
“Station 11 sucks.” I feel that is what I typed. I used to be improper. I could not had been extra improper.
Simply seven episodes later, on the display’s conclusion, I went crawling again into that place of job Slack, on my arms and knees, to inform everybody that – in reality – Station 11 is without doubt one of the highest TV presentations I feel I have ever observed in my existence and each and every human being alive will have to make efforts to observe it.
So pretentious
Jeevan and Kirsten.
Parrish Lewis/HBO Max
My favourite second in Station 11 happens midway thru episode 9.
Jeevan, probably the most display’s primary characters, has been taking a look after Kirsten, a kid actress obsessive about a comic book ebook – the titular Station 11, a comic book ebook she carries along with her all over the place she travels within the put up pandemic international. A comic book ebook that provides her hope in determined cases.
After trekking again to their house base, Kirsten realizes she’s dropped the comedian ebook within the snow. Annoyed, now not moderately working out why it issues, Jeevan angrily stomps again into the barren region to retrieve it. Right through the quest, a wolf assaults him, mauling him part to loss of life. As he crawls on his arms and knees, preventing for survival in excessive sub 0 temperatures, he stumbles around the comedian ebook, buried within the snow. In whole agony he starts studying it, sooner than tossing it apart, screaming: “IT’S SO PRETENTIOUS!”
It is a surprisingly cathartic second. To start with, it is humorous! A superbly timed second of comedy in the course of a dismal, visceral second. I laughed out loud. However additionally it is an acknowledgement, a crystalized second of self consciousness. The display is speaking about itself, immediately to its target audience. Sure, Station 11 is pretentious. It is a display actively wrestling with large concepts – swinging for the fences, navigating the price of artwork in a global stuffed with struggling.
However Station 11 is additionally self conscious sufficient to grasp it is asking so much. Of its target audience, of itself as an leisure product. That is necessary.
A large ask
Why will have to we care a few tv display? Why will have to any roughly artwork topic? In a global the place I to find myself drifting clear of so-called “status TV”, Station 11 pressured me to invite myself that query.
Not too long ago I have been much more likely to eat never-ending, disposable anime, or binge watch really feel just right truth presentations like Previous Sufficient and The Nice British Bake Off. Given what we have all long gone thru over the past two or 3 years, it is been tricky to summon the large mind power required to revel in a display like Station 11. A display that forces us to reckon with large questions and large concepts.
Station 11 is going in instructions chances are you’ll now not be expecting.
{Photograph} via Ian Watson/HBO Max
That is exactly why I discovered Station 11 so repulsive at first. In the middle of COVID 19, a duration of floor shaking political strife, you might be truly gonna question me to have interaction with a TV display a few touring troupe of Shakespearean actors acting Hamlet in a post-pandemic wilderness? That is a large ask.
However Station 11 works as it regulations on each and every imaginable stage. It is so simple as that. It is a smartly written display, with nice performances and soundtrack that may proceed to hang-out you lengthy after you’ve got completed staring at.
Station 11 swings for the fences however hits the ball blank. It takes time to ship on its daring imaginative and prescient, however for those who stick thru that preliminary gradual burn – combat thru that preliminary repulsion – you’ll be able to be rewarded with a display that has nuanced issues to mention on each and every “Severe Subject” it dares to broach. This can be a display about households – each actual and inherited. It is a display in regards to the legacy of shared trauma. A display about artwork as a shelter. If that provides you with the ick, I am getting it. However in an excessively actual universe the place we are deep within the barren region of our personal ache and struggling, Station 11 is as very important as tv will get.
