The OA on Netflix

I liked the clean look of the photography. It looked like kind of flat images and lighting Kubrick strove for in Clockwork Orange and The Shining.

 

I enjoyed it. Every episode held my attention and I had no idea where the story was headed from one to the next. Jason Isaacs as Hap was fantastic.

I never had the impression the show was taking a position on the validity of NDEs. The ambiguity in the final episode supports this. The show strikes me as being science fiction rather than "new age" or mystical. The characters and their relationships are what is central to the drama; NDEs are the vehicle that develops them and moves the story along.

 

Interesting. However, we get Hap's point of view of some events outside of Praire's presence. Hap kills his colleague at the morgue, something that Prairie would have no knowledge of.

 

hmm.. good point. Guess I have to reconsider my opinion.

I wonder if there will be (or even can be) a season two? Or a spin-off focusing on Hap and his research.

 

This is a good observation which essentially means everything she said was true. Of course this might have been a screenwriting blunder, but you only have to work with what they give you, so this essentially means she was telling the truth about who she was. I once wrote a script that took place in the lead characters mind, so he was in every scene , just as you are in every scene in your dreams. But the producer insisted on a cutaway to other characters and I said, the minute you do that you ruin the concept of it believeably being all in one person's head. He couldn't grasp that fine point. That's why he was a producer, I guess. Anyone who had read the original draft said he ruined it.

I think she's says something at the end, as well, which is meant to suggest she was telling the truth. I forget what the exact words were, but it had something to do with the travel to another dimension being "silent" or something like that. And she makes a joke about it since her "trip to the other side was anything but quiet, given the finale.

As I said before, first time viewers would be best served to skip episode 7 in it's entirety. I think that unneeded episode was another blunder. I guess it was to restore normalcy and a slower pacing before the down-top-earth finale, but it slammed it to a halt.

I sort of liked the NDE aspect and sort of didn't. Sort of "Flatliners" meets "Altered States" but there's nothing new under the sun. I think it was "needed" but it was also the most "traditional" aspect of the show and what I liked about it was it being so non-traditional. People at this forum should be pleased that the mad doctor's entire pursuit was based on audio and creating super sensitive microphones. They didn't state it, but I'm certain that the insertion of these mics into the ear meant he was trying to register the vibration of cilia in the ear. Very audiophile. Good thing none of the kids had tinnitus or it would have really screwed up his experiment.

 

I doubt it. I liked the fact that it was a once shot affair instead of a protracted, drawn out one. I'd much rather watch an 8 episode show and have it be done with. It's like a new long-format movie, without getting into the pitfalls of being an endless padded-out series. I hope they start making more one series shows. Of course, the money/service subscription people love that bulk content to peddle.

 

No, there is no mystery, only mysticism. As I've said before NDEs have been investigated before under actual scientific conditions in operating theaters and with people suffering heart attacks (which reduces blood flow and hence oxygen to the brain) undergoing CPR.

Dr Steven Novella is a well respected medical professional (clinical neurologist) who is at the forefront of skeptical community (co-founder of the New England Skeptical Society), advocate for science based medicine (anti-woo, like homeopathy, chiropractic, etc, etc). In his excellent blog Neurologica, he has an entry on NDEs. Here are some excerpts:

"That NDEs occur is not controversial – many people report remembering experiences around the time of cardiac arrest from which they were revived. Typical experiences include a sense of floating outside of one’s body, even looking down upon oneself and the events going on. Some people report a bright light, and others report “passing over” and being greeted by deceased loved-ones... So the question is how to interpret them. Just as even the most rigorous skeptic does not question that people see UFOs, but rather what the UFOs likely are."

"The burden of proof for anyone claiming that NDEs are evidence for the survival of the self beyond the physical function of the brain is to rule out other more prosaic explanations. This burden has not been met."

"The sensation of floating outside one’s body can be reliably induced by suppressing that part of the brain that makes us feel as if we possess our bodies. The experience is identical to that reported by those who have had an NDE. This experience can be replicated by drugs or magnetic stimulation. There are even reports (I have had one such patient) of people who have a typical NDE experience during seizures. The bright light can be explained as a function of hypoxia (relative lack of oxygen) either to the retina or the visual cortex. Any everything else is simply the culturally appropriate hallucinations of a hypoxic brain."

 

I'm on your side with this, BUT I think for dramatic purposes it's permissible to approach ideas like this from another perspective. At the same time think it's a good strategy to address something like this with skepticism within the show, as a gesture of good faith almost, to say "We've thought this through, and we're not just throwing any old nonsense out to make the story work." But this show is nonsense, as some of us have said, and I think the creators are more interested in sweeping us up in the momentum of the thing than in grounding their ideas in something tangible. In that sense, it's similar to Luc Besson's Lucy, which is also based on bad science.

 

Which is why it's also on my merde-list for the same reason.

 

I haven't seen Lucy, so I can't comment on that one, but The OA isn't based on any science at all. It's not a science fiction television show. If it were, I would understand the criticism. The NDEs really aren't the core of the show. The core of the show is the story of Prairie's dilemma and how it will play out. Her years in captivity and her relationships with the other captives, particularly Homer, and the aftermath of her ordeal are the real focus of the show.

 

There's also a question of her sanity and her relationship with reality. The NDEs play into that. But this is a show you either go with or resist, and no amount of nitpicking will change that either way.

 

That's definitely a possibility, and I would argue that the fact that the dance in the cafeteria did nothing more than distract the gunmen long enough for the cafeteria worker to tackle him to the ground suggests the possibility that the students and teacher had been duped by Prairie. Maybe I'm reaching, but that may have been a very subtle version of the gesture of good faith you were looking for.

 

I want to throw out another possibility that some skeptics might find interesting. It seems that most in the group listening to Prairie's story are vulnerable, going through a difficult time in their lives, and may be open to what Prairie is telling them. The teacher lost her brother. Steve is distraught over being rejected, is having family problems and is a generally troubled young man. Brandon has a difficult relationship with his mother. It's been argued by skeptics that psychics and mediums often target those who have just experienced a tragedy in their lives, are vulnerable and are open to fantastic suggestions.

 

Yes, the is standard MO by any confidence trickster. Additionally, there are two types of confidence trickster - one type knows that they're scamming credulous/vulnerable people with pseudoscience, the other type buys into their own BS trough rampant confirmation bias and cherry-picking 'significant' events (p-hacking).

Either way, they help to spread nonsense thinking which is becoming an ever growing problem for society at large, especially in these days of 'post-truth'. I admit, I have a short fuse with this kind of stuff (yes, I'm a lifelong skeptic).

 

A few years ago, there was the famous case of Sylvia Browne's appearance on The Montel Williams Show in which she told a couple that their kidnapped son had been murdered by a black man with dreadlocks. How embarrassing it must have been for Sylvia Browne when their son turned up alive some time later. He had been kidnapped by a fat white guy. I'm sure she's still making money preying on the vulnerable.

 

I'm now more convinced than ever that Prairie is an unreliable narrator. Every time something supernatural happens, Prairie is telling her story to the group. We do get Hap's point of view, but nothing supernatural happens when Prairie isn't present. The one and only time it's suggested that something supernatural could happen is in the cafeteria. Prairie is not telling her story. The group performs the dance, but nothing supernatural happens. Prairie is telling her story when we see her NDEs, when Scott is resurrected and when the police officer's wife is cured, and in each case, she is telling her story to the group and she is directly involved. The group she tells her story to are vulnerable. We get their individual stories, and most of them are dealing with some kind of crisis in their lives. In fact, it appears that Prairie actually hand picks them to be part of the group after meeting them. It most have been evident to her that they were vulnerable. I'm not saying she is a charlatan. I believe she is probably unbalanced as the result of being locked in a glass cage of 7 years. It may have been a subconscious choice to choose those people for the group. There is absolutely not doubt that she was kidnapped, because we have Hap's point of view outside of Prairie's presence, but as I stated, nothing supernatural takes place when Prairie isn't telling her story to the group and when she isn't directly involved. This isn't a story about NDE's so much as it is a story about how these people react to traumatic events and how those traumatic events can leave them vulnerable and susceptible.

 

I think there was an essential lack of charisma from the actors there, just some weird casting that I think was a roadblock between viewers getting into the characters and not being able to do so. I also didn't really care that much about the characters, so I felt like there was something weird there. Call me crazy, but if I had done the show, I would have the mad scientist kidnap teenagers, which I think would have added a much more interesting dimension.

SPOILER ALERT!

They're also intentionally vague as to why the mad scientist held on to his subjects for seven years, which begs the question as to why he couldn't do his research in less time. And why kidnap them at all? Why not pay them $1000 a week for six months just to occasionally die in a comfortable hospital? Why torment them? Why feed them pellets? Why not let them read magazines, newspapers, and have fresh air? Why not let them watch TV? What happened to the Cuban lady guitarist? How could the scientist fly in and out of Cuba so easily (with a passenger) in a small private plane? There are many, many, many unanswered questions. If you explain it all by saying, "well, it didn't actually happen," that sort of belies the massive amount of detail The OA piles into her (very long) story.

The show creators are kind of being attacked by the "interpretive dance" movements that make up a significant part of the ending. To me, this was the single most bizarre part of a very, very bizarre show, but they have some interesting thoughts:

'The OA' Creators Defend the Series’ Most Controversial Twist: The Movements »

Quite a few critics are calling the show vague and infuriating, and I think there's some truth to both:

Let’s Ponder the Ridiculous, Infuriating Interpretive Dance-Filled Finale of ‘The OA’ »
The OA Season-Finale Recap: Imperfect Feeling »
2 Reasons You Should Watch Netflix’s The OA and 1 Reason You Should Not »

I don't disagree with people who say the show is unique and very original, but my main beef is they could've told this exact same story in maybe 2-1/2 or 3 hours tops and not wasted our time with 8 hours of this ****.

 

The movements seem to be the hardest thing for me to get past, and those defenses don't hold water. In fact, both Marling and Batmanglij show just how out of touch they are with their comments. There's potent irony in Marling talking about us being in our heads, when she can't step outside of herself and see how foolish the dance nonsense is.

 

In the article Vidiot posted 'The OA' Creators Defend the Series’ Most Controversial Twist: The Movements » Marling and Batmanglij seem concerned that viewers aren't buying in to the dance movements. It isn't the dance that bothered me so much, I thought the idea of learning five different complex physical movements (and the struggle to attain all five) was a unique way to harness the ability to travel to other realms, time, dimensions whatever.

Spoiler

It was the idea that four students and a teacher would just stand up and perform these movements in front of a shooter that was ludicrous to me. A shooter is going to raise his gun and shoot the five easy targets.

'The OA' Creators Discuss Their Top-Secret Netflix Series and Potential Second Season
'The OA' Creators Discuss Their Top-Secret Netflix Series and Potential Second Season »

 

I really believe this show was about the power of narrative (or storytelling) and its ability to transform. All the characters had issues they were dealing with but through the telling of the story came together through barriers (social and otherwise) that they would have not been able to cross before. The final scene could be interpreted as the characters coming to a place where they are able to care and help one another, a place much different than they were each at at the start.

The characters all became engrossed in the story, much in the same way that I (and many of you) did, thereby in a way kind of making each of us a character in the show.

A story about storytelling.

 

Same here.

Definitely plenty of WTF moments but it is a strange and compelling show - I liked the actors, Scott Wilson and Phyllis Smith especially.

 

Until you address the role that DMT plays in the brain at the time of death, you're only dealing with the trivial. A hypoxic brain does not produce the more unusual shared hallucinations that have been reported.

Science can only currently explain so much. I believe the real "mystical" nature of NDEs is the release of DMT. It’s endogenous, meaning it’s made within the human body. So it’s more than just a natural plant psychedelic, it’s actually in us. Why?

Anyone who has had a true DMT experience knows that there is more to our current reality than meets the eye.

 

It's all part of the shutting down process. I don't see why one chemical/neurological process should be favored over another - they all come into play in way or another.

Er, science is the only discipline which can explain anything at all. In fact, medical science has come a long way in the field of neurology and brain function in recent times. Without it, it's all hand-waving and navel gazing.

Why not? It serves a physiological purpose just like cannabinoid receptors and opioid receptors or any other receptor that can be artificially overloaded to produce various side effects.

Well, if you just 'know' that, then who needs science, right? Chemically induced hallucinogenic experiences occur because you've disrupted the normal chemical balance and signaling in your brain and so you cannot process the information your senses are feeding you in the normal way. What you're experiencing isn't a 'deeper reality', just the inability to integrate and process sensory signals. It's not something I'd advocate.

 

Never seen a show yo-y so much on the Netflix 5 star rating. One day 4.2 then 3.5 then 3 then 4...

 

Just finished the finale, Wow!