The OA on Netflix

Wasted my time with this one... had a lot of promise, then the ending... damn... won't be on board for season 2 if it materializes.

 

Man alive....what a disappointment, I liked the premise but in the end it was a load of pretentious twaddle

 

My wife watched this over the long weekend while I was at the computer gaming. I watched/listened to quite a lot of it. Good gravy, what a yawner.

 

I agree with both of you: it's haaaaaaarible.

This is what I call 2 hours of story dragged out to what felt like 10 hours. And what little story was there wasn't very good. It also looked awful, but that's just my opinion.

 

I'm really surprised by some of the strong negative reviews here. I generally know within a few episodes if a show is "for me". I don't invest 10 hours in something I hate.

As unusual as this one was, I think I liked it. The movements were pretty ridiculous, be even that kind of worked in the final episode. Part 2 (season 2) is expected in early 2018. I'll give it a shot.

 

There’s a part 2 ? That may change my opinion a little.
The Unsatisfying ending seems to be all the rage these days

 

I agree that movements worked in the final episode in that they didn't work at all. That was the point, one that many of the show's critics completely missed. We see the vast majority of the story from Prairie's point of view, and Praire's point of view is unreliable. She leads the characters and the show's audience to believe that there is some kind of magic at work. The conclusion demonstrates that there is no magic in the movements, that many aspects of Prairie's story are products of a delusional mind.

 

S02 is up!

 

Marling is living proof that it takes more than just good looks to be an actress. Her detached persona kinda worked in both Another Earth and The Sound Of My Voice; not so much in The East and I Origins.

 

I've just decided to go with the craziness and watch season 2. Halfway in I've already gotten the expected quotient of bat $hit insanity. There's something admittedly endearing about the chances this series takes, and how committed Marling and her pal Zal are to their shared lunacy. But man is this show nuts.

 

I've tried to forget the ten hours I spent watching this a couple of years back and see there's a season two! Wondering if this may help diffuse the bad taste of the first season?!

 

From the review I read and the Solaris post, I think they double down and get even more weird.

 

I've watched the first four episodes and so far the second season is much better than the first (IMO). The first laid all the groundwork. That allowed the second to take off.

I think a lot of this will hinge on how much you like (or dislike) Marling's approach to the character. So far, she always seems to play a similar character in her work with Cahill and Batmanglij.

Sometimes it works (Another Earth), sometimes it doesn't work as well (I Origins).

 

I said of season 1 that her acting is overly precious and self satisfied, and to the benefit of this season, because there’s more going on, we get less of her.

I finished season 2 off last night and this thing remains the colossal mess I expected. Afterward I was looking up stories about the show and found an interview with Marling and Batmanglij that began by calling them two of the most erudite people in Hollywood. Having just seen the pair’s train wreck of intriguing but unresolved ideas, I couldn’t take the rest of the interview seriously.

This isn’t a smart show. Intelligently enough put together to keep the tension going, yes, but incapable of connecting its ideas to anything resonant. While Marling and Batmanglij may be curious, maybe even ravenous, for intellectual fuel for their stories, “erudite” is overstating it by a generous degree. They seem to consume without an ability to assimilate, so in the end it's all just heady fluff.

I keep asking myself if there's any value in this kind of thing. As fitfully entertaining as it is, it ultimately seems to be about how clever its creators are (or want us to think they are) and very little else.

 

I liked 1st season but Solaris usually nails it. So I may pass I started watching some similarly weird movie where people were transformed by eating caterpillars. Same sensibility. Never made it through the movie. So if S2 is a mess, why bother?

 

I'm not going to take someone else's word for it. I'm going to watch it for myself and decide for myself.

 

A *reporter* kissed the backsides of an actress and a director. Stop the presses! That obviously never happened before.

 

Solaris has a SHF Critic Meter of 90% in my book.

 

Upstream Color is awesome!

 

I don't need someone else to tell me what my opinion is.

 

He’s joking (at least that’s how I took it). I don’t want to discourage anyone from watching if they’re curious and who knows, you may enjoy it. My opinion isn’t law — no one’s is — and I fully admit there are elements of this show that I did like. I’ll be interested in what you think.

 

UGH,that was it!

 

Spoiler

WT...HECK was that ending? Talk about breaking the fourth wall? They leapt into the actors playing their characters?

Telling the EMT "I'm Jason Isaacs"?!?! Hardly anyone outside the UK knows Jason Isaac is. He's barely a household name in his own household. Marling and Isaacs aren't married, so it isn't even our dimension.

Up to that point, I was thinking you guys are full of chit; season two is great.

I've got it tivo'd. I'm going to have to re-watch when I let some time pass.

 

Spoiler

There's the whole octopus scene in Episode 4, too! I also have questions about how Hap built those mechanical movement things so quickly, and did the French lady actually jump, or what?

Also, who was in Steve's body at the end there in the ambulance? Homer? How did he know Hap if he wasn't Homer?

 

Spoiler

I thought that part with Old Night was interesting. Other shows would have explained every single detail with backstory and flashbacks until you think that the writers are insulting your intelligence. I loved the ambiguity in Season two.

And that was Steve in Steve's body. He knew Hap based on what Prairie told them during Season one.[/spoilers]