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To start with, I don't watch many shows. I never go out of my way to watch a show on Netflix or binge something. The Society was something that many people had told me to watch, but I had no interest in. One day I came home to my roommate watching it, and he had just started the first episode, so I decided to sit down and check it out. I wasn't paying attention too much at first, mostly reading emails on my phone. By the end of the first episode, it had grabbed my attention, and I began paying full attention to the show. We watched the second episode, and then called it quits for the day. Over the next week or two, I ended up watching the rest of the season, and just finished yesterday.
Overall, I enjoyed the show. My main complaint being that they ended the season very open, forcing the viewer to beg for a second season if they want any answers to the questions we have. They only answered one of the many big questions we had, in that they showed that the normal world still exists. While this approach is somewhat cocky by the directors, and annoying for the viewers, it allows for a story to better span multiple seasons, so I can't be too mad at it.
Now, for my response to some of the common criticisms:
1. What happened to the bus drivers?
Everyone leaving negative reviews seems to think they are genius detectives for pointing this out. The people who only watched the first episode think they're pointing out some major plot hole, while the people who watched the whole season and still point this out appear to have skimmed through the show.
For the people who watched the full season, you'd know that this becomes a major talking point in the last few episodes, with a few of the characters realizing there must be a major connection between the bus drivers and the the events that lead to them being in their situation.
For the people who just watched the first few episodes and are upset no character points this out, let me show you how that conversation would go:
"What happened to the bus drivers?"
"Idk man, they probably left the city before the city got closed off, or they vanished after dropping us off."
They have no way to answer that question, and it isn't going to be one of the things you'd be immediately thinking about in that situation. It's easier for you at home to immediately go into detective mode while sitting from the comfort of your own home, knowing that you're watching some magical show. From the perspective of the kids, they're still in a real world, no on a TV show, so they're not going to automatically start questioning something where the only answers would be supernatural ones.
On top of that, the show had previously hinted at the bus drivers being significant, making it more likely for the viewer to pick these clues up and start wondering. For me, the time that I realized the bus drivers had significance was when they were going through old photos of Cassandra, and the directors made a point to focus in on the pictures of her on the bus, where you can visibly see the bus driver taking up a decent portion of the picture. That was where I realized they were going to come back to it some point later, and someone was going to point that out.
2. Why isn't everyone working towards the common good and survival? Why are these kids still focused on their personal dramas?
People asking this genuinely upset me. It is not reasonable to assume that a group of kids stuck in this situation would automatically form a perfect society and start supporting each other, throwing away everything about themselves. I wouldn't even assume this to happen with a mature group of adults. If you put people in a stressful situation where they're constantly worried about their life and what's going on, I feel it's fair for them to also feel other emotions more strongly.
What takes place in the show definitely seems like the most reasonable outcome, minus the initial party in the church. If you're upset about them randomly partying in the church, that's reasonable. The rest makes sense, though. It's normal for them to want to party now that they have this newfound freedom. It's normal that they would freak out about learning that they're alone and trying to take as much food from the store as possible. The first few episodes show that the only thing the kids care about without leadership is survival, and having fun to avoid thinking about consequences.
3. Where's the power and water coming from?
Simple answer is we don't know. We don't know the rules of this world, and neither do the kids in the show. That's not something that the show writers need to explain write away, or really ever. People can have their own theories on the matter, or the person(s) running their world will explain it later.
"They party hard and drink all the time, yet don't seem to notice that power and water are coming from nowhere?". This was a direct quote from another review, from someone who I don't think paid much attention to the show. For one, only half the people are really partying or drinking to begin with, and that only last for a day or two. Secondly, they bring up MULTIPLE times throughout the show that they do not know where the power and water is coming from, and that they don't know how much they have left. This was a key talking point for the government at multiple speeches throughout the show, something that the politicians were asking from the very start to the very end of the season. I do not know how people in the reviews missed this and think they found another "gotcha".
4. This is just SJW propaganda/the put too many heavy teen topics in the show.
Firstly, I don't see any of this as SJW propaganda. I'm usually quick to point that stuff out and get upset about it. This show teetered towards it at points, but never fully drowned itself in it. This all was fine, as it was portrayed more so as a reflection of our current society, not as the directors trying to force an opinion on you.
Secondly, I enjoy when teen shows deal with heavy topics. They went over some rather fast, but overall executed on most of them in a decent way. You can say what you want about these things, but they are real things that teens and adults face everywhere, and including them in the show just makes it that bit more real.
5. Harry's only motivation is drugs.
This is just a blatant oversight of everything going on in this show. They made a point to show that Harry's leading source of depression is that he's no longer in power. He went from being the coolest kid in school, to being just another cog in the machine. His motivation is that he wants that power back. As Cambell said, Harry wants to go back to "running the place'. Drugs were just an additional thing added in that help push Harry over the edge.
score 9/10
invenitive 7 June 2019
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw4919235/ |
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22-11-2019 12:30:04
13-4-2020 17:43:36