Have you ever watched something that was so engrossing and yet repelled you at the same time? Drew you in and made you think only to run roughshod over your better judgement? If you watched either The Affair or Ascension, you would be very familiar with these feelings as both made for incredible TV that also was tough to handle.
I write this article not to say that each of these shows is bad, on the contrary I wish more TV networks took risks like these two shows. But just because soemthing is risky doesn’t mean it is without critique. Take The Affair, Showtime’s hit drama with the wonderful acting and Rashomon style story structure, which has proved an interesting show to watch. I was enthralled watching the pilot and the first few episodes were really interesting in terms of how a shared experience could have two different perspectives. However, in recent weeks I’ve been worn down by the structure (Noah played by Dominic West had his story told first 9/10 episodes) which I felt tried to put undue bias on me, in addition to the murder mystery plot, which maybe isn’t a mystery?, that moved the show into doing drastically different things with its diverging narrator’s views. It was fun to watch the characters be messy as hell and the drama stayed throughout the season, however with the way the finale ended I wasn’t amped for the big reveal at the end, more so annoyed at where the show took me. I will probably stick around for another season, but I wonder if that murder mystery will prove as compelling as the initial affair and the ramifications it cause.
Speaking of shows taking me places, I don’t recall a more engrossing hook than the one Ascension delivered at the end of the pilot. Ascension‘s first season isn’t so much a season as a mini series launch into what hopes to be a season 2 and given the raves and Syfy’s lack of original programming it should come back. However, I find myself wrestling with just how effective the show was and wondering the impact it could have going forward. Ascension has some amazing scifi elements, the world building is outstanding, its messy as hell (everyone is having an affair! sex is the only currency! class issues!) and the cast just tears into the material. Why then did I find myself disengaged during the 2nd act of every episode? This might be by virtue of watching On Demand (which has an insane amount of commercials) or it could be that by packing everything into a short time the creators were actually done a disservice. And the ending…like…I can’t even begin to go into the final moments of Ascension season 1 but suffice to say it made me less than happy. Ascension feels like a show that needs breathing room for its messier elements to work themselves out because in these compressed episodes, it felt like the show was bursting and in trying to tell so much felt like it wasn’t saying much at all. I’d love to see the show come back as a 8-10 episode run, especially since the creator seems to have some bigger plans in play.
Have any of you checked out these two shows? What are your thoughts?