I try not to be self-critical about how many series I watch on the 'idiot' box. I did used to feel guilty about it, but then I realised that I'm just a story addict. I read books for the same reason - to be transported.
Luckily I'm coasting on my Mum's Apple subscription this year and only paying for Prime, and a month of Stan, which I've cancelled already so I can catch up on 'From'.
Here's what I've been watching.
I'm a huge sci-fi fan, so appreciate the wealth of it on Apple. This one also featured Joel Edgerton, an Australian actor and filmmaker who I like mainly because he's dependable, whatever that's worth. I liked him in 'Train Dreams' and I think he does a solid job as an actor. His wife in the series is played by Jennifer Connolly, who I also find dependable and very watchable, and the two worked well together.
The series is based off the idea of many worlds in physics. Joel plays a physics professor, happily married with a teenage son, who explains the theory of Schrödinger's cat to his class. Schrödinger's cat comes from quantum physics, where tiny particles can exist in a "superposition" of multiple possible states until they are measured. Edgerton illustrates this on the whiteboard for the audience - both us and his class - where Schrödinger imagined a cat in a box whose fate depends on a quantum event. Before the box is opened, the mathematics suggests the cat is both alive and dead as a set of possibilities. Most of us know this theory, even if we don't really get the physics.
In Dark Matter, this idea is taken a step further - instead of possibilities collapsing into one outcome, every possible outcome becomes a real world. Each time Jason (Joel) makes a choice, different versions of his life branch off and continue to exist. So Dark Matter is like a many-worlds version of Schrödinger's cat, where all the cats survive somewhere—and all the cats die somewhere too. To bring this theory to life, Jason builds a box - but here's the rub. It's not the Jason/professor we meet in the beginning, but the Jason of another world, or another possibility.
Arriving in Jason the professor's world, he realises what is missing in his life, and kidnaps this version of Jason and puts him into his world. Confusing? Wait till you see the end of the series.
I love Sliding Doors/alternate reality moments, so this show really hit the spot for me. I loved how each world contained a possibility, from the horrific Ice Age Chicago to one where technology is used for good, not political gain or indeed military might, one ravaged by a pandemic, another post-nuclear, a water world, and so on. It's almost a Magic Faraway Tree situation where you never know what world is on the top of the tree.
The series moved along at a good pace - nothing lingered too long and it did keep you guessing, and wondering too, how the small choices we make in our lives take us on different pathways and how our personalities are formed. The show seems to ask big questions and invite us to engage in them. The fact that the actors had to also play alternate versions of themselves was also fantastic.
I'm really looking forward to Series 2.
This one has surprised us - it's pretty quirky, menacing and funny - yeah, I know, right - and whilst I wouldn't rave about it, it's been an entertaining ride. Think Wicker Man vibe - a small isolated community, folklore and secrets, but add a good dash of black comedy. For us, the quirky comedy was quite hilarious in parts, having a bit of a Scarfolk darkness to it, or in the way that a small town has built its entire identity around something weird, sinister, and possibly supernatural, but everyone is kinda okay with it.
The basic premise is that a sceptical mayor tries to turn a supposedly cursed island into a tourist destination, only to discover the locals were right all along - the place is cursed.
There's some genuinely creepy moments offset with genuinely drily hilarious moments. Even the plot of each episode is delightful:
Make sure you pack a good read for the beach!; We do not recommend self-help books on the island.
Think sea hags, killer clowns, dangerous mist, hidden passageways, haunted houses, and so on, as well as mass hallucinations that may or may not be brought on by self-help books and/or magic mushrooms.
From is one that Jamie won't watch. We watched all of Lost as each episode came out back in the day and were addicted with the best of them, and I would argue From is similar in that you never know what the fuck is going on and the show could go anywhere. They're both set in isolated places where the characters are trapped, and they must understand the mysterious rules of the place and survive, and have a steady drip of inexplicable clues, the supernatural and unanswered questions. Both show how ordinary people react when reality is not to be trusted.
From, however, is considerably more anxiety-inducing horror and violence. People risk being torn apart by monstrous - ghosts? - each night and are influenced by whatever malevolent force rules the place to believe certain realities that can bring about death and mutilation to the inhabitants there. There's less hope and wonder in From than the castaways in Lost, more horror and claustrophobia, and people make terrible choices to survive. I think that Jamie can't watch it because of the constant dread and anxiety, let alone the self-appointed sheriff Boyd, whose voice always seems to be at fever pitch. Even I can't watch more than one episode at a time.
Whilst Lost was a cultural phenomenon with a much wider audience, From is far more niche. Still, I can't help watching, even if I'm frustrated - I do want some characters to escape or have the chance of escape and keep hoping that'll come, but the way the four seasons have been going, I doubt that very much - it's either brutal mutilation and death, or nothing on this show.
In the last few months we've watched Criminal Record (can't beat a British cop show), the third season of Capture (excellent television about deepfakes and AI), Dark Wizard (about Dean Potter, free climber and base jumper/wing jumper in the alt climbing culture of Yosemite and an excellent doco), The 100 Foot Wave (also an awesome doco about big wave surfers and Nazaré in Portugal), and a few other guilty watches by me whilst Jamie watches bikepacking videos (Margot's Got Money Troubles, The Good Girl's Guide to Murder, Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed). We've started Cape Fear and it's genuinely creepy but nothing on the impact of watching that film back in the day, and are also about to start the new series of Alone, which makes me a little sad as we were watching the last series with Dad when we were living with him as he was dying.
In my defence, I used to have my head in a book for hours and hours on end, and I don't think there's anything wrong with being a sucker for a good story. It's also winter here in Australia and it gets dark early, and we're bloody exhausted with work and a few health issues.
This post actually feels super out of date - I found this in my drafts inbox as I tidied it up, thanks to 
With Love,