[HBO Max] Station Eleven

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Grifman
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[HBO Max] Station Eleven

Post by Grifman »

Ok, I just got through watching this dystopian post apocalyptic limited series from HBO Max. This is not your typical PA drama - there is some violence, lots of death (from the plague), but it is more about the connections between people, and how they deal with both personal loss and the end of civilization. It hops back and forth between people and time so sometimes I got temporarily confused, but overall it works. The framing of the story around a graphic novel read by the protagonist was brilliant. I’m still thinking about this.
Last edited by Grifman on Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

Post by Grifman »

I found this episode recap helpful for the couple of times I got confused:

https://www.vulture.com/tv/station-eleven/
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

Post by Smoove_B »

Yeah, I'd mentioned it in another random thread, but didn't think there was enough interest to start my own. I finished it last week:
The season (series?) ended last night and somehow I magically timed it so I finished Ep9 and Ep10 was available. Absolutely loved (loved) this show. The writing (to me, at least) was really, really good. It reminded me of a few of the AMC shows I also loved - character driven dramas that are about the relationships between people. Shows like Lodge 49 or Dispatches from Elsewhere that have a hint of spirituality or philosophy as an undercurrent.

The way all the stories were intertwined - how each of the characters related to or influenced each other (directly, or indirectly and unknowingly) was just so well done.

A++
I agree - it's been almost a week and I'm still thinking about the show as well. It was really well done.
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

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Smoove_B wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 8:16 pm Yeah, I'd mentioned it in another random thread, but didn't think there was enough interest to start my own.
I did do a search beforehand but nothing turned up.
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

Post by Smoove_B »

I'm just glad someone else finished the whole thing and enjoyed it. I was really nervous it was going to be focused on the disease stuff, but as you noted it's really a story about human connections.

I still am not clear as to whether or not there will be another season, but it's great as is. I definitely want to read the book, regardless.
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

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So . . . I've read the novel and just finished the mini-series. This is a rare case of the film version being better. The novel was well written in terms of characterization, description, and various semi-standalone "chunks," but it never really cohered and brought the threads back together. Whoever wrote the screenplay actually managed to fix it and gave it a much better ending.

Anyhow, I really liked it. I was just thinking of how I'd describe it to someone. I came up with: it's like the walking dead without zombies and the assumption that people, on the whole, are slightly more good then evil.
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

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Yes! It's more about hope and good. I spent so much of the show waiting for something evil or bad to happen, but it was uplifting. That's what I was saying about Lodge 49 and Dispatches from Elsewhere - both of those shows made me feel better for watching them.

And yes, I'd heard the same thing about the book - that this TV adaptation was the odd situation where the adaptation was an improvement.
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

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Just started watching it this week. Finding it quite interesting and there are quite a few parallels. Only on the second episode so far as of today, but so far it's been good. The only thing that kind of pulls me out of it is Mackenzie Davis. Her acting feels quite wooden. I felt the same way about her in Halt & Catch Fire.
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

Post by Kraken »

I was lukewarm after the first two episodes, but it finally gelled with E3 (in which we get the "Station Eleven" backstory). Now I'm looking forward to the rest of it.
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

Post by Holman »

I just started episode 1. I know the novel has been very well-reviewed, and that's the kind of thing I usually love.

30 minutes into the show, I think I have to step away. Urban pandemic collapse is too much for me right now.
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

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Smoove_B wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 8:48 pm I'm just glad someone else finished the whole thing and enjoyed it. I was really nervous it was going to be focused on the disease stuff, but as you noted it's really a story about human connections.

I still am not clear as to whether or not there will be another season, but it's great as is. I definitely want to read the book, regardless.
It's a limited series, as you noted, based upon a book. It's story is complete.
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

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Kraken wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 10:34 pm I was lukewarm after the first two episodes, but it finally gelled with E3 (in which we get the "Station Eleven" backstory). Now I'm looking forward to the rest of it.
Interesting, that was the episode that almost lost me. I was very frustrated and puzzled that we were spending an episode with the author of the graphic novel, which seemed superfluous to me, but it paid off in the end.
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

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Smoove_B wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 8:50 pm Yes! It's more about hope and good. I spent so much of the show waiting for something evil or bad to happen, but it was uplifting.
I'd call this the "anti-The Road" version of the apocalypse. Man, that was a great but so bleak movie. Loved it but couldn't watch it again.
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

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The only part of the ending I didn't like was the end for . . .
Spoiler:
. . . the Prophet/Tyler. He reconciles with his mom (good) but takes her off to join up with his cult of stolen/brainwashed children, which I can't see ending well (bad). Also, I never understood why he was trying to get Alex to join him, unless he was looking for a sex partner more his age, but young enough to control/manipulate.
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

Post by Smoove_B »

Yes - you need to keep watching. You might think things are pointless or they're leading you down a useless story path, but it will all make sense by the final few episodes. You just have to deprogram your brain from show that spin you down story arcs or plot elements that never get resolved. Finishing this show feels satisfying.
Grifman wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:51 pm It's a limited series, as you noted, based upon a book. It's story is complete.
If it's reviewed well and it makes HBO Max a ton of money via extra subscribers, never say never. :wink:
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

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Grifman wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 12:00 am The only part of the ending I didn't like was the end for . . .
Spoiler:
. . . the Prophet/Tyler. He reconciles with his mom (good) but takes her off to join up with his cult of stolen/brainwashed children, which I can't see ending well (bad). Also, I never understood why he was trying to get Alex to join him, unless he was looking for a sex partner more his age, but young enough to control/manipulate.
Spoiler:
I got the sense that it would be mostly ok with his mom and Alex with him. I'd imagine that group will probably still be an anti-technology hippie commune, but I felt they were leaving violence in the past at least (Tyler didn't kill Clark on stage with the knife. The kids didn't turn into mass suicide bombers at the end).
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

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Smoove_B wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 12:39 am If it's reviewed well and it makes HBO Max a ton of money via extra subscribers, never say never. :wink:
,

As much as I'd like to see more set in that world, I think it would be difficult to pull off a directly related season 2 that didn't feel forced. Maybe they could tell the story of a new set of interconnected characters, but then that would make the title kinda problematic.

Actually, they should adapt the fake graphic novel into an anime! :D
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

Post by Smoove_B »

I absolutely agree. I haven't read the book yet so I wasn't sure if it was all covered, but this felt like a complete story. I'd fear the same thing with a second season - that they'd be trying to repeat the formula with different characters and it wouldn't work. I'm just not used to seeing something that was crafted so well as a one-shot. No cliffhangers, no unresolved plot elements - everything came together.
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

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Rumpy wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 10:00 pm Just started watching it this week. Finding it quite interesting and there are quite a few parallels. Only on the second episode so far as of today, but so far it's been good. The only thing that kind of pulls me out of it is Mackenzie Davis. Her acting feels quite wooden. I felt the same way about her in Halt & Catch Fire.
You lost me at "wooden."
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

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Jaymann wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 5:40 pm
Rumpy wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 10:00 pm Just started watching it this week. Finding it quite interesting and there are quite a few parallels. Only on the second episode so far as of today, but so far it's been good. The only thing that kind of pulls me out of it is Mackenzie Davis. Her acting feels quite wooden. I felt the same way about her in Halt & Catch Fire.
You lost me at "wooden."
I, on the other hand, think she is amazing. Most critics seem to agree. I think she says so much through her eyes. The scenes where she is watching herself are wonderful.
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

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Holman wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 10:43 pm I just started episode 1. I know the novel has been very well-reviewed, and that's the kind of thing I usually love.

30 minutes into the show, I think I have to step away. Urban pandemic collapse is too much for me right now.
I'm watching more and I'm liking it.

I haven't read the novel, but I've heard that it offers a more positive take (e.g. communities form when people endure crisis) on the oh-so-overdone apocalypse genre. I'm seeing a lot of that and feeling good about it.

I've just started teaching HAMLET again in my Eng 102 classes, so this is pretty much right up my alley.
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

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Holman wrote: Fri Jan 21, 2022 9:09 pm
I haven't read the novel, but I've heard that it offers a more positive take (e.g. communities form when people endure crisis) on the oh-so-overdone apocalypse genre. I'm seeing a lot of that and feeling good about it.
Even the cheerful color palette and brightly lit scenes set it apart from the murky monotone worlds we usually see post-apocalypse.
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

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One thing I think this series brings out indirectly is that in at least some apocalyptic scenarios, there's no need for conflict, at least over resources. With 99.9% of the world dying pretty quickly, there's just tons of stuff out there, free for the taking. Clothing, building supplies, canned food, agricultural supplies, etc. It's all just sitting there, either in stores or distribution warehouses. Just go to your nearest Amazon distribution center and grab what you need. It really is a shopper's paradise in a perverted fashion.
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

Post by Holman »

I just finished ep9 (out of 10), and I'm thoroughly impressed with the storytelling here.

A lot of it is very personal (e.g. Tyler the Prophet), but the setting's understanding of how people will endure or work to survive (rather than just become cannibal berzerkers) is important.
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

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Finished it on Friday and thought it was great. Nice to see Jeevan and Kirsten reunite. I thought the series was kind of weird and hard to follow in some parts, but it came together nicely. The only thing I found odd about the concept was that even though they're supposed to be living and trying to survive in an apocalypse, we don't see or hear about any farming, but they're able to somehow survive, travel and perform shakespeare. Huh, Ok. Weird set of priorities.
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

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Rumpy wrote: Sun Jan 30, 2022 12:09 am Finished it on Friday and thought it was great. Nice to see Jeevan and Kirsten reunite. I thought the series was kind of weird and hard to follow in some parts, but it came together nicely. The only thing I found odd about the concept was that even though they're supposed to be living and trying to survive in an apocalypse, we don't see or hear about any farming, but they're able to somehow survive, travel and perform shakespeare. Huh, Ok. Weird set of priorities.
The communities they visit are doing the farming - at the airport you can see they are even doing what looks like hydroponics. The Traveling Symphony is presumably performing for their meals, just like traveling bards of old.
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

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Grifman wrote: Sun Jan 30, 2022 12:20 am
Rumpy wrote: Sun Jan 30, 2022 12:09 am Finished it on Friday and thought it was great. Nice to see Jeevan and Kirsten reunite. I thought the series was kind of weird and hard to follow in some parts, but it came together nicely. The only thing I found odd about the concept was that even though they're supposed to be living and trying to survive in an apocalypse, we don't see or hear about any farming, but they're able to somehow survive, travel and perform shakespeare. Huh, Ok. Weird set of priorities.
The communities they visit are doing the farming - at the airport you can see they are even doing what looks like hydroponics. The Traveling Symphony is presumably performing for their meals, just like traveling bards of old.
Ok, I guess I could buy that, aside from the fact that most of the places they've been visiting (other than the airport which only starts factoring into the story about midway into it) looked pretty much completely devoid of life or any rebuilding efforts. Like anytime they arrived at Severn City for instance, my thoughts kept wandering to how utterly barren it looked. Didn't look like the town could support itself, let alone a traveling troupe of performers.
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

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I finished the series tonight. Maybe I'm suffering from binge-attachment, but I thought it was excellent.

Sure, there were a few logical gaps, but they're easily waved away. The question of farming is important, but at least we do see people doing it. Plus, a route sticking close to the shores of Lake Michigan will have access to fishing communities with surplus to trade.

Most of all, a post-apocalypse narrative about people loving each other rather than going cannibal just seems so welcome and necessary right now. That's really what this series was about.

A propos: Rebecca Solnit's book A PARADISE BUILT IN HELL studied modern communities faced with various sorts of collapse--natural disasters, war, economic failure--and learned that distressed populations are much more likely to turn to mutual aid than to universally preying upon each other.

(I think most of our apocalypse narratives are still tainted by the Stay-Out-of-my-Bunker paranoia of the atomic 1950s.)
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

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Rumpy wrote: Sun Jan 30, 2022 3:25 pm Ok, I guess I could buy that, aside from the fact that most of the places they've been visiting (other than the airport which only starts factoring into the story about midway into it) looked pretty much completely devoid of life or any rebuilding efforts. Like anytime they arrived at Severn City for instance, my thoughts kept wandering to how utterly barren it looked. Didn't look like the town could support itself, let alone a traveling troupe of performers.
I'm not sure what you are talking about - the airport is the Severn City Airport. They don't show anything other than the airport there - they don't show the actual city, presumably because it's dead and empty. And I don't understand when you say most of the places seem devoid of life. Yes, the world itself is largely empty and dead - after all it was an apocalypse, but they visited 3 places in the movie - St. Deborah by the Water, Pingtree (the Golf Course), and the Museum of Civilization (Severn City Airport). All of those locations had people. They showed no other settlements, except where Jeevan is from, don't remember that it had a name.

And you are forgetting, canned food is everywhere, free for the taking. I'm presuming these settlements are growing crops (as seen at the airport), but they can easily supplement with canned food. No, they didn't show every settlement growing crops but the show wasn't about agriculture, it was about culture :) They don't need to show everything as to how these settlements survive. You can make some common sense assumptions.
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

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Ok, well, you'll have to forgive me for confusing some of the places. I'd thought Severn City and the Airport were two very different areas along their route. This was further compounded when at the end someone pointed to the map and said something to the effect of "We'll have to start putting the airport on the map.", after Kirsten hadn't wanted to perform there. So, you can't really blame me for being confused. So, the place with the KFC-like bucket on its side is not Severn City? Is it Deborah by the Water? Wish they would have had the names on screen.

And yes, I realize it's a show about culture, but I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. In fact, adding a bit of texture about how society is going on would have benefited to the story about culture and can in fact help sell the story. If culture is to grow, it needs to put down roots. But as I said, I enjoyed it. It was only a small annoyance of mine.
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

Post by Smoove_B »

I think we're all just so wired at this point to think about food in whatever post-apocalyptic show we're watching because of Carl and that giant can of pudding (j/k). But seriously, I think Station Eleven was just so very focused on people and other than the initial episode(s) and the shopping cart trek, we just have to assume everything is working out somehow. It's not about people fighting over food or other resources, it's all about the relationships and the tension created between trying to embrace the new vs clinging to the old.
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

Post by Exodor »

Finished this last night and loved it.
Spoiler:
I briefly thought they were going to let the episode end without Kirsten and Jeevan crossing paths and I was prepared to burn everything down
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Re: [HBO Max] Station Eleven

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Exodor wrote: Mon Jan 31, 2022 11:28 pm Finished this last night and loved it.
Spoiler:
I briefly thought they were going to let the episode end without Kirsten and Jeevan crossing paths and I was prepared to burn everything down
Same on all three counts!

98% RT

I give it a 92 or 93 if you force me to score it out if 100.

I was quite bummed that it ended actually, and was somehow totally oblivious that it HAD ended until my wife made me realize all the storylines were tied up.

She thought the ‘time shifting’ was a big confusing, but she also slept through a good 15% of it. Compared to something like ‘Dark’, it was a nursery rhyme in terms of timeline complexity.
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