The season-ender of Manifest (which is probably the series-ender) just aired last night, and it was haaaaarible. I think Damon Lindelof of Lost tweeted, "see, our ending wasn't that bad, am I right?" Completely sucked, nothing made sense, a major character dies, and another character suddenly gets 5 years older. 2 solid hours of WTF?
I enjoyed the season until the last two minutes of the finale. I wonder if that was the original plan or added later in a desperate hope for renewal?
Yes, I read that and another one with the producer. Still claiming all six seasons have been mapped out, everything is going according to plan and it all makes sense!
At last, our long national nightmare is over. I wanted to like Manifest, I really did: the idea of a commercial airline jet that somehow leaped through five years of time, only to discover that all its passengers had been charged by a mysterious force to do "callings" -- good deeds (or else face certain death or worse) -- was an intriguing mystery. But the whole thing felt muddled, and I felt they kept trying to superimpose a "feel good/This Is Us" philosophy on top of it all, and it never felt real to me. It joins more than a dozen sci-fi/fantasy/conspiracy shoes that tried to take the place of LOST over the last 15 years: Fringe, Flash Forward, Heroes, Alcatraz, Terra Nova, Revolution, The Event, The 4400, V, Resurrection, Under the Dome, Person of Interest, Kyle XY, Timeless, Wayward Pines, Emergence, Invasion, The Tomorrow People, Zero Hour, and No Ordinary Family. Debris might have been the best of the bunch, from the makers of Fringe (and that was a pretty good show, too), but the rest never managed to catch lightning in a bottle. ‘Manifest’ Canceled After Three Seasons – The Hollywood Reporter
I enjoyed the show, but gave up on it before this last season ended...after I think it was just the first 2 episodes. It seemed less cohesive in the ever more chaotic storyline w/additional characters. I think my interest had waned, too, b/c of the longer delay w/its' return (C-19). That is becoming a thing of late (not just from C-19, it began before that), for me to continue feeling engaged by a series, as the networks or cable stations they're on frequently toggle their scheduling. Half the time I don't know if they're coming back, been cancelled &/or if they are, when. And, I guess none of them are as enthralling or I'd make more of an effort to find out. Case of which came first, the chicken or the egg. I was more of an Invasion fan over Lost. Have no idea what my opinion of either would be @ this time, though I did recently purchase Invasion DVD, so I'll see @ some point how I feel present time whenever that may be. And, I do remember that there's no resolute outcome. That's okay, so long as it's captivating throughout. I also just revisited show Now And Again, knowing that didn't have a conclusive ending after 1 season, either & still enjoyed it & also have on-deck Forever, which I remember viewing & liking, but not much else w/specifics.
Personally, I tried to watch this show five or six times during its run and couldn't completely watch an entire episode. It just couldn't hold my interest. There were too many sub-plots, and I felt like it was The Mentalist (where it took around six seasons to finally reveal the main bad guy) of Science Fiction shows- it never seemed to really reveal anything of interest while it just keep adding more unexplained things and events.
It turned into a comedy for me. Ridiculous how they referred to the Xers, Meth Heads, life boats, the Major, the Majors daughter...so bad - it was almost good.
Aaaaaaand the effort to get Netflix to pickup the show failed, so Warner Bros. has given up efforts to continue Manifest: ‘Manifest’: Efforts To Find New Home End After Netflix Passes On Canceled NBC Drama – Deadline One hopes that viewers will not get a "calling" to watch the show again... ever.
It is at the top of current Netflix viewing so I'm surprised they did not make a deal. That would have been an 828 tail fin level twist to this thread!
It could well be a money problem. Quite often, after a show has been on 3 or 4 years, this triggers a "raise" clause in everybody's contracts, so now the actors get an increase, the producers get a bump, some of the writers are paid a little more... so all together, each episode may now have a 20% higher budget. It's possible everybody insisted on the raise, and Netflix was unwilling to do that. I can recall in the case of NBC's Timeless (another fan-favorite that had middling ratings and got cancelled), NBC/Universal only agreed to come back with one final 2-hour movie provided everybody got no raise. So it was an "economical" wrap-up that still gave them closure, got to tie up all the loose ends, and give the fans a definitive ending to a show they had watched for a couple of years. But many, many shows never get that final episode. Famously, actor Sherman Hemsley of The Jeffersons said they were expecting to be renewed for a 12th season on CBS, but abruptly got cancelled at the end of Season 11. He was very bitter than they didn't get to do a one-hour special or even a TV movie that wrapped up the entire series. One idea they had kicked around was where, a few years later, George Jefferson had made some bad investments and they had now lost all their money and were living in (relative) poverty again. But they found a way to stay together, get along, and find happiness, which was ultimately the point of the show. Actress Isobel "Weezy" Sanford died in 2004, making a new episode impossible to produce. The show went off the air in 1995, so I think a 1995 "Ten Years Later" episode would've been a good idea -- but alas, it was not to be.
Manifest won't quit! The creator continuing to try to save the show now wanting a two hour movie: Manifest Boss Still Trying to Give Fans Closure After Streamers Pass on Series: 'It Could Take a Week, a Month, a Year'
there is probably no one on this site who has been more critical of 'manifest' than me. i would like to explain myself and ask a question. after about the 6th show ending with a preview teaser that i would find out the following week what happened to that plane i knew the scam was in and i gave up and got a bit perturbed at how the producers of the show manipulated their audience week after week with that tease, never ever even coming close to answering the question and, of course, asking even more questions to be answered 'in the weeks ahead. so i must ask: in the 3 years that it was on TV, did the ever answer the question of what happened to that plane ?
Well... we know what happened: the plane and passengers on a flight from the Carribbean disappeared for more than five years, after passing through a strange lightning storm, then landed where it was supposed to land in NYC. What we don't know is why -- time warp? accident? on purpose? -- or how: were they dead? alive? were they clones? were they meant to die? Was this a quest and reward, or were their lives something that had to be earned? And we don't know who or what was responsible: aliens? fate? god? supernatural causes? naturally-occurring force field? a scientist with futuristic equipment? The questions raised in the final episodes touched on the possibility that objects going back as far as Noah's Ark (WTF?) had traces of a strange chemical also found on the tail fin of the plane, but that powerful forces compelled them to destroy it so it couldn't be studied further. The same forces gave the survivors visions (aka "callings") that they had to fulfill, lest terrible things happen. As often happens when you get into religion or fantasy or mythos (including The Wizard of Oz), you want to ask, "hey, if the powerful forces wanted something done, how about an exact message like, "save Johnny Smith on the corner of 1st and 3rd at 2PM this afternoon -- he's going to get hit by a truck unless you stop it!" But no... the visions were always vague and weird and open to interpretation. If you ask me, I think the Manifest writers and producers were just throwing a bunch of at the wall to see if they could come up with an interesting story. I don't think there was a master plan, I think they were just spitballing it and making everything up as they went along.
Caught one episode of Manifest towards the end and am not surprised it got cancelled. Wasn't that familiar with the plot either but your outline pretty much reminded me of Stephen King's '90's mini series The Langoliers. Much more interesting and credible airline time warp premise for a TV series IMO. I was hooked back then and will watch reruns of it when aired on cable TV. Maybe King should come up with better written Sci-Fi toned dramas. I'm beginning to believe current writers for TV have run out of ideas. But surprisingly there's so much more of it than ever before.
It's not over yet for Manifest! ‘Manifest’ May Be Saved As Netflix, NBC Eye Season 4 Of Canceled Show – Deadline
Can you believe this crap? What I would go for would be a 2-hour Manifest "wrap-up" movie that takes care of all the dangling plot threads and plot holes and all that stuff, and just explains everything, gives us some finality with a real ending, and then we can end America's national nightmare once and for all.
I keep wondering about shows like this. Is it really the desire to tell a story that's at the bottom of this...or, is it the desire to monetize the target audience the show is intended to attract? Are they still that grumpy about losing Highway To Heaven...? I'm reminded of Kevin Bacon in Animal House in uniform at the parade, holding up a hand and yelling at the oncoming crowd, "NO, I REALLY BELIEVE, you can have a Sci-Fi-based series with a moral center, that just reaffirms, the showrunners know nothing about what makes sci-fi work-! All is well!"
they just can't let it go. they strung the viewers along for 3 years (what, about 60 hours) and told them basically nothing, and now they want a one or two hour wrap-up to tell them everything! what a load of crap.
