Station Eleven

Station Eleven (now 5 episodes in) is a slow burn, surreal, and enigmatic. It's clearly not going to be for everyone, but any review under 5 stars isn't doing justice to what is going on with this show.

There's a slightly ominous aspect to it that provides a foil for its seeming lack of coherence (which is really only surface deep). It's coherence lies in the themes it follows rather than any fixed and characterised point of view.

This is a very carefully constructed and intelligent piece with a haunting sound track and an at times brilliant interplay between characters left traumatised by their experience of a world coming apart at the seams and their non-volitional survival - in various ways they are all in shock. There are some quite sensational performances from some of the cast, but they also have some great material to work with.

This is intelligent and thought provoking TV, delivered with passion.

This is first class television. The orchestration and use of sound is phenomenal. The writing while not quite avant-garde does push the envelope for creative thinking and wonderful story telling.

Utterly engrossing and unexpected. Phenomenal storytelling, world-building and character studies. HBO has created something special. Extraordinary casting, beautiful cinematography, and a magical score raises this series well above the ordinary television landscape. Through masterful directing and editing Station Eleven is a slow burn, surreal, and enigmatic. It's clearly not going to be for everyone, but its an intelligent piece cinema worth seeking out .Station Eleven rewards patient viewers with an insightful and thematically rich assertion that , even in the post-apocalypse , the show must go on.

I managed to last through 5 full episodes, but I kept nodding off due to the glacial pace of this series. The metaphor of watching paint dry might be applicable, but the paint will finally be dry in an hour or two, while this just seems to go on forever.

NYfree says it gets better by Episode 7. Well, it's only 10 episodes long, so it looks like it must be 60% filler. If it was cereal, it would be banned from the grocery shelves.

The first episode was a bit slow for my liking but the story is interesting enough to keep my attention. I particularly enjoyed the third episode. Would like to see where this goes. I say give it a chance, watch it for yourself since most the reviewers here want the same post- apocalypse show/movies that we already have a thousand of.

Station Eleven is at its best when it focuses on the stories set during the outbreak of the flu and immediately after. The storylines featuring the traveling troupe just aren't good. The troupe is made up of unlikeable characters who can't stop making stupid decisions and acting dumb (including the insufferable adult Kirsten).

However, when this show does decide to focus on the outbreak storylines such as Jeevan and young Kirsten, Miranda, and Clark and Elizabeth the show is fantastic. You feel the intended emotions during these parts because the characters are relatable and you actually care about them. I really wish they would've spent more time on the earlier stories and less on the traveling troupe of boredom.