A new feature of streaming TV seems to be shows made exclusively for streaming services. Amazon has been showing the pilot episodes for a bevy of new shows it is producing to do just that. I watched two recently. One was a comedy about a Los Angeles pro football team and the zany hijinks of its new owner. She was the wife of the owner but he died and she took over. Oh and she's a former cheerleader so the writers have some built-in jokes when they need them. It wasn't bad but I think they tried too hard to be "edgy" read: filthy and inappropriate for anyone under 30. I won't lie and say I didn't find parts of it funny, I did. I just think it could have been done in a PG 13 format and still maintained the humor.
Another pilot I watched was called The After which hinted in the promo that it was a post apocalyptic drama that gets you started right before the apocalypse happens. It caught my attention because I'm interested in the sociology of survival and it was produced by Chris Carter of X-Files fame. It starts with a vaguely European woman with a family but she's on a trip to California to audition to be an actress. The day starts off just fine and there's a little foreshadowing with an unexplained gathering of police officers here and there. Not long after her audition some confusion happens and she's thrown together with a group of people that hate each other. All the power goes out, phones don't work, no one knows what's going on. To quote Michael Binkly, It's all higgledy-piggledy! At this point the band of heroes and anti-heroes are trapped in a parking garage and one or two "mysterious" things happen. Unexplained creepy figures walking by without the panic everyone else is going through, that sort of thing. A couple of the group escape the automatically closed gates of the garage and try to get help for the others. Outside it's a scene of s-l-o-w-l-y developing chaos.
Later the happy band of survivors gets back together and after the requisite mob scene, gunfight, hate filled tirades (lots of those), they get to the stately manor of one of the party. All the while you are kept in the dark about the source of the new found apocalypse. So lets look at our options.
The Crisis could be:
1. Robot Apocalypse: example, The Terminator
B. Zombie Apocalypse: take your pick, it moves as slowly as "The Walking Dead" but there are so many options.
5. Terrorism: Live Free or Die Hard
6. Extra Terrestrial: meteor, aliens
C. Other: It is Chris Carter making this thing after all.
At the house we're treated to more fussing, some class warfare tirades, and finally a hostage standoff that leads us to the big reveal. Oh, before the hostage standoff we find another clue to the show. All of the group have something strange in common but the show's not gonna tell you any more than that. A chase in the woods after the hostage standoff brings all the survivors back together and suddenly "it" appears and understandably freaks out the group (above image). In the span of a few seconds some more clues are revealed but you'd probably have to search for them on Internet conspiracy websites. Have at it if that makes you happy. I watched until the end of the credits just in case there was another clue or two but no luck.
Think X-Files mixed with Millennium reformatted for today's TV market. I'd watch more episodes of the show but I'm not sure the rest will be a part of the free service. Here's the website that has all the shows they're putting out. I couldn't get past the first 10 minutes of the "gritty cop drama".
