First Things First…
I don’t know much about this show. But as I’m just getting Geeksbury off the ground, I want to always be in the middle of reviewing at least two shows so I can mix things up. And since I kicked off with Stranger Things, which is already four seasons in, I wanted the second one to be shorter and quicker to get through. This is only one season of eight episodes, and I remember someone tweeting about this awhile back. It sounded like it could be a good horror show. So that’s all I’m going off of to start.
6 Things I Like
6. Master Craftsman
I always like seeing someone do a job they’re exceptional at on screen — especially when it’s an odd job I don’t know anything about.
Restoring old, damaged tapes definitely qualifies.
And that’s how we get to see our main character, Dan, early on — doing his thing, cleaning up and restoring these damaged tapes. Putting on his gloves, delicately cleaning the tape with a swab and some kind of liquid. I bet he could make a good ASMR video.
It’s good insight into the kind of meticulous craftsman he is.
5. This Place Gives Me the Creeps
Once Dan moves to the remote research facility, I equally love the indoor and outdoor setting.
Inside is like a dungeon. It’s kind of labyrinthine, it’s dark and gloomy, and even though Dan is there by himself, most of the doors are locked.
Makes you wonder…
But then, the outdoors is idyllic. He’s in the Catskills in New York, and it’s isolated and beautiful. There’s great foliage. It looks like it’s fall. There’s something almost creepy about the serenity of that scene… or maybe it’s just the way it’s juxtaposed with the indoor living situation he’s in.
(Or it could be the barbed-wire fence enclosing the property.)
4. Virgil Knows Things
Virgil runs a shadowy organization called LMG. And while Dan can’t find any information about them and what they do — even though they’re located in a skyscraper in New York, with “LMG” in giant letters on the side of the building — Virgil manages to get personal info about the ultra-private Dan.
When he casually mentions Dan losing his family in a fire, it’s a good indication that this mild-mannered guy is not to be trifled with.
It’s also a good indication that he might not be someone Dan should do business with. And Dan reacts that way in the moment, but — probably foolishly — changes his mind, which we’ll get to.
3. More Than Meets the Eye
Jessica is fun as hell. I really like her character. But what starts out just as a street-smart teenager hustling to earn some cash becomes a little more. She seems to know more than she’s letting on about the building and its residents. Especially when she asks Melody, “Did Samuel bring you here?”
Who’s Samuel?
Also, as Melody starts to question her about the weirdness in the building, Jess’s eyes go out of focus and she has what looks like either a seizure — or like she’s being possessed. It’s scary for her, creepy for Melody, and she says later that her doctor told her there’s nothing physically wrong with her and it’s all in her head.
But that’s not the end of the weirdness.
After Jess has recovered from her seizure, she asks Melody if she believes there can be more than one world. When Melody responds by saying something about Heaven and Hell, Jess says, “No, I mean like this one, but different. More than this world.”
Then she asks Melody…
“Do you think I could be more than I am? Like, do I seem strong enough to hold a new world inside of me?”
I have no idea what these questions are about. But there’s been a lot of multi-versal storytelling in pop culture lately.
Oh, and lastly, the footage on this tape goes from Jess saying “can I tell you something?” as she seems on the verge of revealing something to Melody, to Jess being taken. There’s no indication of how much time passed between, or what role Jess plays in whatever is going on. But I’m intrigued.
2. “This Is the Chorus of Human Suffering”
This first episode stacks so many mysteries on top of one another that I’ve lumped most of them here.
One is the song that Melody’s first interviewee, Tamara, says she composed — and which she calls “the chorus of human suffering.”
It’s the same song Melody thinks she hears through the radiator the night before. And I think it’s the song young Dan and his sister were playing the night of their house fire, which their Dad tells them to stop playing.
Melody also has a physical reaction to the song, like it almost makes her ill.
But that’s just the start. There’s also…
- When Melody asks the custodian who shows her around the Visser Building for advice on meeting people there, he just tells her to stay away from the sixth floor. That comes up again in footage at the end of the episode, after Jess has been taken…
- Notably, Melody catches a guy on camera walking out of the Visser as she’s about to go in for the first time. It’s only for a second, but he looks like he’s been caught and doesn’t want to be on camera. I think he’s the same guy who’s in some of that footage at the end after Jess has been taken, too…
- After Dan is done talking with on the phone with his friend Mark while outdoors, someone is lurking in the background on the grounds wearing a red jacket…
- It’s eerie how no one opens their door when Melody knocks, wanting to interview them for her project…
- There’s the mysterious Samuel I mentioned already, who Jess brings up to Melody…
- The tape gets distorted as Jess is seizing, and something looks like it’s practically going to jump out of the static on screen. This doesn’t seem like an alien show, but my first thought was that it looks like an alien. Or maybe a skull…
- Is the elevator always out? Because two different times the custodian tells someone it’s out.
But then there are the two biggest mysteries of all, which must be connected…
1. Who’s Watching the Watcher?
It starts with Dan’s dad showing up on tape, and Melody knowing him — or at least knowing who he is — and wanting him to go away. Of course, Dan freaks out.
Then, there’s a very cool shot where the camera zooms out from Dan watching that footage and rewinding over and over again, and we see he’s on screen too — in a control room where Virgil seems to have the entire compound under surveillance and is watching Dan.
So there must be a bigger connection to this whole situation for Dan than just that he’s the guy skilled enough to restore the footage.
1 Thing I’m Mixed On
1. That’s DEFINITELY the Red Dog Collar I Bought in That Fuzzy Picture
Dan turns the job down at first. He doesn’t seem keen on it to begin with, and when Virgil reveals he knows Dan lost his family in a fire, Dan bolts.
But seeing a photo in the background of that first video he restored with a Golden Retriever wearing a red dog collar is enough to make him do a 180.
It turns out he’s probably right — now that we know his dad knew Melody, that probably is his dog in the photo. But it’s still a flimsy reason to take this job, for this shady corporation, where he’s going to be isolated in the middle of nowhere, living in a creepy compound, where the guy who hired him knows way more about him than he knows.
That’s not even to mention that there’s no internet and only spotty cell service, which he doesn’t learn until he’s there.
But I at least appreciate that it wasn’t an easy decision. And that Mark tries talking him out of it and tells him he’s just seeing what he wants to see.
1 Thing I Don’t Like
1. Not Enough Shock Value
The video that opens the episode — and the series — needed to be more shocking.
They’re clearly trying to suck you in by opening with some crazy found footage. But considering we don’t know any characters yet and have no context for what’s happening, that’s a hard task unless it’s really shocking.
I didn’t even remember it was Jess’s name Melody says until I watched the episode a second time. Jess is too common of a name to stand out.
If it had been Tamara’s name that she said in that opening scene, I probably would have put it together later in the episode when meeting Tamara that I had already heard her name. But with a name like Jess, it didn’t work.
Final Thoughts
This first episode is a slow burn. I started out not caring too much about any of these characters, or the tapes. Even the central mystery — a fire burning down the Visser Building — wasn’t intriguing at first. It felt too realistic. Knowing only that this is a horror show, and that the premise is a guy restoring found footage that could unravel a mystery, I would’ve been more grabbed from the start if I knew it involved ghosts, or a cult of devil worshippers, or something more overtly horror. But by the end of this episode, it seems like any or all of those things could be on the table.
This also gives me Rosemary’s Baby vibes. Not because there’s anything to do with a baby or a pregnancy, but the building and its residents seeming so mysterious. There’s definitely something sinister going on there.
Tim Matassa
