Episode Title: “Pilot”
Writer: Chris Carter
Director: Chris Carter
Amazon has jumped on board with the “produce your own content” idea that Netflix, Hulu, and other similar sites are doing. Rather than commit to an entire season of a series, however, Amazon has taken to creating pilot episodes for multiple shows and letting the viewers vote on which ones they’d like to see more of. In an age where everything is driven by Likes, Upvotes, and Views, this seems like a great idea to help captivate viewers and foster stronger quality from their shows.
In the category of suspense/drama we have, “The After”, created by the mastermind behind “The X-Files”, Chris Carter. In “The After”, eight strangers find themselves banding together to survive mysterious events that have turned the world into a chaotic, violent mess. The events are super freaking mysterious. So mysterious that the audience has no clue what’s going on the entire episode until the last minute when we are given a pebble of info. While this certainly builds up a lot of wonder about what’s happening, it made the whole episode feel aimless and clumsy because we got nothing to grab onto emotionally. Should we feel sad about what’s been lost thanks to this event? Dread about what’s to come? We’re supposed to be rooting for the characters to survive, but we don’t even know what they’re supposed to be surviving. Neither do the characters, either, which is something they make sure to constantly remind us.
The episode starts with a young woman, Gigi (Louise Monot), talking to her daughter and husband who are at home while she is in a hotel preparing for an audition. We learn some generic background information about her – she has a family, and she’s an actress. Later we learn that she will keep any promises she makes, and that’s it. There’s nothing remarkable about her character at all. Are we supposed to like this character and relate to her just because she has a family that we see for a few seconds and have no attachment to? That’s bad writing, people.
On her way back from the audition, Gigi gets into an elevator with a clown, a cop, an old woman, and a drunk, which sounds like the beginning of a very bad joke. They suddenly lose all power, phone service, and radio service. Our merry band manages to pry the door open and crawl out into the parking garage, only to be confronted by the locked exit doors trapping them.
This whole scene is full of “why are they showing this to us” moments, and “why is the acting so bad” moments. Although honestly, it’s not clear whether the badness comes from the actors, the script, or the directing. For example, one of our leads is Adrian Pasdar, who always did a fine job as Flying Man Nathan Petrelli on “Heroes”, so it may be some behind-the-scenes badness weakening the show. Acting weakness aside, there are several moments throughout the episode that are dumb just for the sake of keeping things moving towards where the writers want it. For instance, everyone’s trapped in a parking garage- if only they had some kind of big heavy machine that could bust down the gates at the entrance. They all even mention having the keys to their cars, making the whole thing feel even sillier.
Of all the characters we’re introduced to in the pilot episode of “The After,” Aldis Hodge’s D. Love is easily the most compelling. He plays a “violent murderer” (as opposed to a peaceful murderer?) who escaped from prison and swears he was framed for his crime. Love’s the most natural-sounding character of the group. I actually believed he was who he said he was instead of wondering if I was watching a high-budget student film by mistake.
The Not Ready for Primetime Players eventually get out and discover that the whole world has slipped into chaos in a shockingly short amount of time. People are running in the streets, looting stores, and shooting each other. Why and how did this happen so fast? Who knows. The characters have no clue, and neither do we. Some viewers may dig being kept in the dark, since it helps us feel the same confusion the characters do. But for others it’s just annoying since it’s harder to get invested if we have no friggin’ idea what’s going on. Is this worldwide? Is it citywide? Who knows?!
Regardless of exactly what’s happening, we do know things are bad, so the group escapes to the woods in order to evade some robbers… which is where things finally get a bit interesting. Turns out that the reason for this chaos is because of an invasion of the alien kind. These aliens are pretty cool-looking, too, with bright red eyes and dark blue skin covered in tattoos. We also learn that the group all has the same birthday, and two of them have tattoos that match the ink on the alien.
So, if you stick through the pilot, it’s clear that there’s a vision behind what’s going on here, and the introduction of aliens is really intriguing- very different from the typical natural/human-made disaster. “The After” could use another couple of episodes to improve its writing, plotting, and character development, however, because as it stands this series wouldn’t make it onto my “To Watch” queue.
