Sunday, March 5, 2023

1899

 

I have said for some time that there is a big difference between good science fiction and cheap science fiction.  Good science fiction has many good ideas, and there is no better example of this than The Empire Strikes Back.  

On the other hand, cheap science fiction might have just one good idea, which somehow has to keep the audience entertained for the length of the program.  So they introduce a mystery early on, drag this mystery out as long as possible, and then finish the show with a big reveal that is supposed to surprise everyone.  There are many movies that have followed this pattern, including The Signal, Annihilation, Moon, and maybe to a lesser extent, Primer, Super 8The Abyss, Another Earth, and Arrival.

Using mystery to drag out a TV show is nothing new.  The trouble with The X-Files is that it never seems to go anywhere.  The same could be said for Twin Peaks and Invasion.  The king of "mystery boxes" is Lost, which presented the viewers with a ton of mysteries and only resolved about two-thirds of them.  Both Lost and Battlestar Galactica, which are two of my favorite TV shows, ended their series with supernatural explanations in a way that nobody saw coming.

The Netflix series 1899 is about a group of passengers on a transatlantic voyage in the year 1899.  Events on the ship keep getting weirder with every new episode.  The problem for me is that I could easily predict where the show was going and what the big reveal was going to be at the end.  I can think of another series that had an almost identical ending, so I won't mention it here.

In fact, 1899 reminds me of Outer Range, not because the stories are the same, but because of the identical way the two shows drag out the mystery.

Nevertheless, both shows have good enough characters to keep us entertained.  Most science fiction also has to be a soap opera because the shows live or die based on the interaction of the characters.

Whereas Outer Range was renewed for a 2nd season, and shockingly so was the rather dull Invasion, Netflix canceled 1899 after just one season.

Rating:  B.

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