Wayward Pines (new M. Night Shyamalan TV series)

My other half tried to watch After Earth a few days ago. She gave up after about 30 minutes. "That Smith Kid just can't act for toffee!" was her appraisal.

 

I'm in so far. Hopefully it goes somewhere interesting.

 

Idaho is a big state. The parts abutting BC do indeed look like BC.

 

The beginning was very Lost-esque.

 

This first episode was totally weak and with a color palette/look that I always hated - everything dark and dreary - a look that newer series like OITNB or True Detective et al thankfully avoided and instead introduced more "real" colors again - that first episode of LOST was far better and way more ambitious than this crap, and Matt Dillon couldn't act his way out of a paper bag ..... and I beg to differ, the last scene with the electric fence around the village looked totally cheesy and was such a turn-off ..... the one thing that kept bothering me in a good way was the discrepancy between the 60s/70s look of the town and equipment and the current time frame - especially those old dial phones everywhere ...... was that a clue ? But OTOH everybody seemd to know what cell phones were, so

 

It evoked lost with the opening close up of Matt Dillon's eye, but that's where it ended.

It's more like Under the Dome, which doesn't bode well. I'll give it another episode or 2... we'll see.

 

I haven't started watching yet, but if I get an Under the Dome vibe, I'm out . . . FAST!

 

Anyone see #2 yet? I have it recorded for tonight.

 

Watched episodes 1 and 2 last night. The show does feel like kind of a mash-up of “Twin Peaks”, “Under the Dome”, and “The Village.” There's a bit of a "Bates Motel" vibe going on, but of course that show professes to also be influenced by "Twin Peaks."

I do think the actual title "Wayward Pines" comes across initially as a comical rip-off of "Twin Peaks", but I guess the title presumably comes from the books the show is based on.

It’s holding my interest enough to keep watching, a bit like A&E’s remake of “The Returned” in that sense.

I do think a few of the actors are chewing the scenery too much, including the sheriff and his receptionist. It’s not so much “creepy weird” as “comically over-acted.”

I also think it’s kind of weird that Dillon’s character appears to be the “straight man” so to speak, the “normal” outsider, and he’s a secret service agent, yet he doesn’t find what’s going on in the town as problematic/suspicious as he should. He seems just mildly annoyed, but keeps assuming things aren’t as weird as they actually are. If I was a secret service agent, and the sheriff was smiling and laughing about a murder while eating an ice cream cone, I’d be more troubled than Dillon’s character seems to be.

I think even by episode two he starts to get more suspicious, so it’s not a big deal. I don’t know if it’s just Dillon’s acting style of not emoting much that makes it seems like he’s not initially as trouble as he should be.

As someone else alluded to, there could be a lot of “unreliable narrator” stuff that might end up happening as well.
But there are definitely some interesting and enjoyable ambiguities, including whether the Gugino character is actually “on board” with what’s going on or not, as well as the weird time discrepancies (Gugino says it has been 12 years while Dillon says 5 weeks, meanwhile Juliette Lewis thought it was 1999 or 2000 instead of 2014). As several have mentioned, how these mysteries are addressed/resolved/explained will make or break the show to some degree.

 

I enjoyed episode 2 - I need to go back and watch it again as that nurse mumbled something filthy to Matt Dillon in the hospital about his wife I didn't quite catch. She also said something to him in episode 1 about "down to the bone" when she was trying to give him an injection and he was struggling to avoid it I didn't quite catch.
That was some ending, eh?

 

I caught #2 last night. I'm not wild about it yet, but curious enough to continue.

 

Interesting looking. I'll try to catch the next episode.

 

I've been watching but like many others, I'm a bit wary. I'm glad that there are books to base at least some things, but I really hope this series is designed for only a couple of seasons and that we don't get that year six of Lost for our troubles.

Yes, I get distracted by the so many other things it shows the influences used. Twin Peaks/Lost/X-Files/The Prisoner. And then the ending last night, while not a direct correlation, was basically Shirley Jackson's The Lottery.

It doesn't look much like Idaho, or except for the shot of the Space Needle, Seattle. Having lived in Idaho in the past, and Seattle for the last almost 30 years, I kind of know my territory. On the Idaho side they have a lot more pines, but the show looks like the wetter British Columbia to me -- who knows, I could be wrong but I'm willing to suspend my disbelief. A big part of that is that Canada has actively sought the media business and gives them all sorts of incentives to shoot there. Plus the more they shoot, the bigger pool of technical talent they have.

 

As I was watching episode two it suddenly occurred to me that this show might have
worked better as a comedy(!). There were several moments Thursday evening when I
was expecting Matt Dillon to just let loose with a one-liner but it never came. Episode
two, unfortunately, became unintentionally comical at times. Here's hoping the entire
series doesn't lapse into downright silliness.

 

it was quite stupid. i'm done with this show.

 

I noticed Twin Peaks has been mentioned a lot in describing the show. It's worth noting that In the afterward of the first book, Pines, the author acknowledged that Twin Peaks inspired these books. He stated at age 12 he was heartbroken by the cancellation of the show and began writing a 3rd season for himself. These works would lead to the Wayward Pines books. His goal was to capture the feel of Twin Peaks.

I would love to see the series last to show all the content of the books. I'm hoping the show improves as the curtain begins to be lifted.

 

I'm hooked. I have a LOT of questions. I don't think this comment will spoil anything. I am most intrigued by the "time" aspect.

 

I'm guessing that many of you that are reminded of Lost have not seen The Prisoner because the set up is pretty much exactly like The Prisoner. Including the fact that the Dillon character is a Fed/agent, you can't just drive away, the people there are placed, etc. ... all stuff directly lifted from The Prisoner. We are going to give it a few more episodes to see if it can differentiate itself.

 

These types of shows still need some sort of semi resolutions. Reminds me of the town in the last Walking Dead. It's just too familiar in parts to so many other shows and not different enough. Maybe it will eventually find done originality.

Can't stand Terrence Howard in this

 

An interesting resolution would be if Matt Dillon's character was screwed up, and everybody else was normal. I'm sure that's been done before. I haven't seen the second episode yet. I wasn't particularly thrilled with the first one. I might give it a chance. This show is being advertised as a 10 episode event. Does that mean that, at this point, there aren't plans to continue the series after 1 season? Obviously that will change if the show is a hit, but a limited run means that viewers are more likely to get answers sooner rather than later.

 

I don't agree. I have a calibrated HD monitor and watched the first two episodes via satellite, and I thought the show looked fine. I have no problem with the look at all. They do deliberately go for a desaturated kind of blue look for flashbacks, but the bulk of the show looks normal.

I agree, there have been some slightly cheesy VFX in the show, but eh... it's a TV budget. They can only do so much with the time and budget they have available.

I think the old-fashioned look, the occasional dial telephones, and other weird visual elements are going to be explained once we understand how long the town has been there and what it's for. The promos for episode #3 blew my little mind -- there's a couple of shots I was not expecting.

BTW, you gotta love the Nurse Hatchett character in the show. She's a lotta fun.

 

Interesting premise, very stylish...and that's about it so far. A show that just likes to ask questions for the hell of it. I'll stick with it because it's not awful but I find it dull and boring so far.

 

Maybe I am too sensitive about that look - say Vidiot, is that "desaturated kind of blue look" the same kind of look that makes me want to smash my TV Set on the last season of Vikings ? Did you watch it ? I find it grating to no end, that there is no green, yellow, brown, white etc only that artificial blue look ....... nauseating

 

Kind of The Prisoner meets Twin Peaks aesthetic, IMHO.

And after the Red Wedding in Game Of Thrones you can't slit a throat as bloodlessly as that, unless there's a Fincheresque The Game type plot going on ... ?

--Geoff

 

My wife tells me that in some review or piece about the show, we will understand a lot more about what's going on by around the fifth episode. That's kind of what I'm hanging onto here. I'm willing to hang in while it wanders about being weird and confusing, but at some point it has to solidify and make some kind of sense. As I said to her after the second episode, "I have no idea what is going on in this show." I do like the sheriff and his ice cream, and his perpetually annoyed secretary, though.