The After is a lacklustre knock off of LOST with nowhere near the level of suspense or character development. It tries to go for the strange-factor in so many ways but comes off as if writer/creator Chris Carter (best known for the X-Files) simply saved up a bunch of weird ideas and decided to throw them together without tying a single one of them sensibly to a plot. As such, the concept comes off as if he's firing in all directions and not even sure what he's firing at.
The first 15 minutes of the show are ridiculously boring. I have a hard time believing that nobody read the pilot script and after 10 pages didn't ask, "Is something going to happen?" Nothing on screen adds to the characters any way other than artificially and what little incidences that do occur are not enough to drive interest. For a show that clearly wants to be suspenseful, there is in fact no suspense.
That being said, one does get the feeling somebody along the way realized this fact as the first 30 seconds is just a montage of weird images edited in such a way as to jar the audience at the start. But it comes off as completely contrived. And then the show goes downhill from there. It's just puzzling that the producers didn't take that as a hint in reading the first script.
The most disappointing element is that most of the characters are either clichés or lame attempts at originality. The fish out of water protagonist who just wants to see her family, the wrongfully accused black man, the insecure female cop, the rogue hick, the wealthy old lady, the slick talking lawyer and his supermodel girlfriend, and... a clown? You cannot make this nonsense up.
As for the meat of the script, the dialogue is boring and the plot turns are glacial at best, all leading up to a cliffhanger. Or at least attempting to lead up to a cliffhanger. The big conceptual reveal in the end only starts to develop 10 to 15 minutes before the credits. There's no real hint of it throughout the show which makes it seem as if either the ending concept was tacked on or everything before it was just throw together because Carter knew a 15 minute show wouldn't fly.
But that isn't even my biggest complaint.
Anybody who had a problem with the notorious underwear scene in Star Trek: Into Darkness is going to be rolling their eyes with this pilot. Carter has taken the cake on gratuitous and unnecessary use of a woman as eye candy. It's really sad and in fact quite hypocritical considering the protagonist (who is an actor) in the start of the show gets her nose bent out of shape at a script read-thru that depicts a woman as a sex toy. It's like Carter was making a statement against such sexism in film and television only to employ it ten times worse himself.
It is disheartening that Chris Carter after all this time can't come up with another decent concept. The X-Files and Millennium were way ahead of their time in their initial run. Harsh Realm was a laudable attempt. But ever since -- whether it be the Lone Gunmen or the second X- Files film -- Carter seems to have given up on perfecting his work before putting it out there. The After is nothing more than another misguided attempt that should have been either work-shopped further or rejected.
I honestly have to wonder who at Amazon green-lit this series. As a writer who has read other original series concepts, it blows my mind that drivel like this gets a go-ahead while other, more original and interesting series ideas are left gathering dust.
The first 15 minutes of the show are ridiculously boring. I have a hard time believing that nobody read the pilot script and after 10 pages didn't ask, "Is something going to happen?" Nothing on screen adds to the characters any way other than artificially and what little incidences that do occur are not enough to drive interest. For a show that clearly wants to be suspenseful, there is in fact no suspense.
That being said, one does get the feeling somebody along the way realized this fact as the first 30 seconds is just a montage of weird images edited in such a way as to jar the audience at the start. But it comes off as completely contrived. And then the show goes downhill from there. It's just puzzling that the producers didn't take that as a hint in reading the first script.
The most disappointing element is that most of the characters are either clichés or lame attempts at originality. The fish out of water protagonist who just wants to see her family, the wrongfully accused black man, the insecure female cop, the rogue hick, the wealthy old lady, the slick talking lawyer and his supermodel girlfriend, and... a clown? You cannot make this nonsense up.
As for the meat of the script, the dialogue is boring and the plot turns are glacial at best, all leading up to a cliffhanger. Or at least attempting to lead up to a cliffhanger. The big conceptual reveal in the end only starts to develop 10 to 15 minutes before the credits. There's no real hint of it throughout the show which makes it seem as if either the ending concept was tacked on or everything before it was just throw together because Carter knew a 15 minute show wouldn't fly.
But that isn't even my biggest complaint.
Anybody who had a problem with the notorious underwear scene in Star Trek: Into Darkness is going to be rolling their eyes with this pilot. Carter has taken the cake on gratuitous and unnecessary use of a woman as eye candy. It's really sad and in fact quite hypocritical considering the protagonist (who is an actor) in the start of the show gets her nose bent out of shape at a script read-thru that depicts a woman as a sex toy. It's like Carter was making a statement against such sexism in film and television only to employ it ten times worse himself.
It is disheartening that Chris Carter after all this time can't come up with another decent concept. The X-Files and Millennium were way ahead of their time in their initial run. Harsh Realm was a laudable attempt. But ever since -- whether it be the Lone Gunmen or the second X- Files film -- Carter seems to have given up on perfecting his work before putting it out there. The After is nothing more than another misguided attempt that should have been either work-shopped further or rejected.
I honestly have to wonder who at Amazon green-lit this series. As a writer who has read other original series concepts, it blows my mind that drivel like this gets a go-ahead while other, more original and interesting series ideas are left gathering dust.