What does the tip of the world appear like?
The premiere episode of HBO Max’s Station Eleven affords a couple of completely different solutions to that query, whether or not it’s the doorway to a metropolis hospital clogged on all sides by folks and vehicles, or a once-great theater coated in moss and overgrown weeds. However few of Station Eleven’s photographs are as robust or efficient as that of a airplane full of individuals crashing into Chicago’s Navy Pier, all whereas a little bit lady watches on from the glass home windows of a close-by condo.
Primarily based on Emily St. John Mandel’s 2014 novel of the identical title, Station Eleven is stuffed with post-apocalyptic photographs like that. Nonetheless, very similar to the ebook that impressed it, Station Eleven isn’t about combating to outlive in a bloodthirsty dystopian society, however how merely witnessing the tip of the world can change an individual. It’s not a sequence that’s fascinated with a airplane crashing however within the little lady who watches it go down.
And it’s among the best exhibits that’s premiered this 12 months.
Station Eleven’s story is a well-known one: When the world is rocked by a devastating pandemic that kills many of the planet’s human inhabitants, the few survivors should study to reside in a society that’s solely a shadow of what it as soon as was.
Regardless of that, Station Eleven begins, all over the place, in a Chicago theater throughout a manufacturing of King Lear.
When tragedy strikes, the sequence turns its give attention to its forged of disparate characters, lots of whom have some sort of connection to the manufacturing firstly of the sequence. What follows is a narrative advised throughout a number of timelines — some that happen earlier than the world was hit by the pandemic, others which are set 1, 2, and even 20 years after it — that finally investigates the methods wherein trauma lingers inside us and the way artwork, whether or not or not it’s Hamlet, King Lear, or a comic book ebook, can assist us course of our ache.
On the heart of its story is the Touring Symphony, a nomadic theater troupe that traverses the present’s post-apocalyptic panorama performing Shakespeare performs in each human settlement its members come throughout. When the troupe turns into the goal of a mysterious cult chief referred to as The Prophet (Daniel Zovatto), Station Eleven’s characters are lastly compelled to reckon with every part that’s occurred to them because the world ended.
If that makes it sound like Station Eleven is miserable or troublesome to get by, you’ll in all probability be shocked to study that’s not the case in any respect.
Whereas the sequence does include sequences exhibiting overworked hospital employees, overcrowded emergency rooms, and other people coughing beneath surgical masks, Station Eleven makes use of these moments sparingly and infrequently returns to them after its opening episode. Consequently, the sequence finds the room to be whimsical, joyful, and delightfully bizarre over the course of its 10 episodes.
Whether or not or not it’s a personality reciting Invoice Pullman’s speech from Independence Day or one survivor placing on a clown wig they discover in an deserted dwelling, Station Eleven is crammed with moments of humor and levity. Altogether, they assist make the sequence an pleasing and entertaining experience, even when it makes an attempt — usually efficiently — to drag at your heartstrings and make you attain for the closest field of tissues.
The restricted sequence was tailored by showrunner Patrick Somerville, a author whose earlier credit embrace episodes of HBO’s The Leftovers. It’s his work on that present that feels the closest to what he’s finished with Station Eleven. Each exhibits buck conventional narrative construction at practically each flip, not solely leaping between views however usually dedicating whole episodes to the backstories and emotional journeys of single characters.
Like The Leftovers did in its second and third seasons, Station Eleven additionally presents viewers with a playful and uniquely bizarre tackle an undeniably tragic scenario. Whereas that sort of tonal steadiness is a troublesome one to strike, Station Eleven succeeds largely to the pitch-perfect work of its forged.
Mackenzie Davis, specifically, shines as Kirsten Raymond, a ruthless however loving survivor who has spent most of her post-pandemic life with the Touring Symphony. A former baby actor, Kirsten is haunted by each the profound losses she’s skilled in her previous and the worry she has of dropping anybody else she holds pricey. The actor performs her character’s ache and sometimes childlike petulance with an honesty and vulnerability that’s nothing wanting astonishing.
Hamish Patel equally impresses as Jeevan, a traditional man who varieties an surprising and profound parental bond with the youthful Kirsten (performed by Matilda Lawler) within the early days of the present’s world disaster. Lori Petty, in the meantime, offers a standout supporting efficiency as Sarah, the Touring Symphony’s conductor, and Danielle Deadwyler makes a long-lasting influence as Miranda Carroll, the creator of a comic book ebook that Davis’ Kirsten covets above all her different possessions.
Proper now, the considered watching one other present a few pandemic ravaging the world won’t seem to be probably the most thrilling of concepts, and nobody might be blamed for selecting to attend to observe Station Eleven. However those that do decide to it should discover themselves watching a sequence that’s much less in regards to the world ending and extra in regards to the methods wherein we will select to return collectively after it does.
“I keep in mind harm,” Davis’ Kirsten says in one of many present’s early episodes. It’s each a line from Miranda’s comedian ebook and a mantra for her — an acknowledgment and reminder of all of the ache and loss she’s skilled. Because the sequence goes on, Kirsten and the remainder of the present’s characters embark on their very own painful journeys into the previous — remembering the harm.
Nonetheless, when Station Eleven reaches its inevitable conclusion, the present is much less involved with rehashing the devastation of the previous as it’s highlighting the moments of kindness and empathy that introduced its characters collectively within the first place. It’s a strong narrative left flip, proving that, whereas the harm could also be not possible to overlook, it’s not the one factor we will select to recollect.
Station Eleven premieres December 16 on HBO Max.
