The episode was god-awful. Haven't seen the rest of the show and I'm definitely not compelled too after watching one of the greatest disasters in the history of cinema. I could almost see there being a cult following in the so bad it's good category for admiring how laughably bad it is. There's nothing wrong with the general storyline, however it's nearly every conversation within that storyline and the acting is painfully bad unanimously (Winona Ryder easily wins the worst acting award). I could turn a blind eye on the kids acting to a certain degree, but everyone else on the show....oye vey!
In most circumstances I would say to give a show a chance before writing it off after only one episode, however this is so bad, that it's a problem in the directing. It feels like it was directed by Tommy Wiseau. A problem like that doesn't just go away after the first episode. This feels like a highschool movie project. Back to Winona Ryder... her character is in identically one character mode in every scene. And the character mode that she's in is hard to compare to anything I've seen before. She's in this perpetual frantic mode, but she doesn't seem genuinely frantic/panicked/stressed out. There are no words to express how ridiculously bad her acting is. I may just fast forward to the parts that she's in in the next episode, just so I could have a good laugh, which I'm sure will get old quick unless she transitions into another bad acted expression, but so far it's been just one expression in every scene. This show is rated well so my only rationale to that is, people are so desperate for anything science fiction related that they will embrace anything that falls into that realm. If this isn't a sign for how much demand there is for anything science fiction related than I don't what is.
Update - I watched the whole series. I don't take back how ridiculously bad the first episode is, but the show is decent after the 1st episode... not great, but decent. If that was the pilot episode I don't know how the show got picked up. The acting improves a lot after the first episode. Winona's is still bad, but it improves from laugh out loud bad. Why aren't there warnings telling people how bad the first episode is? Anyways, consider this a warning!
Just a funny note - In the 3rd episode there's an ex machina within an ex machina within an ex machina. I don't think I've ever witnessed a show have the balls to do that before. Thankfully it's not a pattern. I'll let a show slide on the occasional ex machina, because even the best of shows have them. In case you're curious what it was; Mild spoiler alert - it entails, a dude stumbling upon a coincidental house of a chick he knows that he just happened to have a random moment with earlier that day. Then proceeds to secretively take pics of them. In the process captures an astronomically coincidental picture, and the furthest fetched of them all. The next day the dude already has blown up prints of the pics and while walking around at school the same people who he took pics of decide to randomly grab the dudes school bag and see what he has inside only to find out that he took pics of them the night before. Oye Vey!!! The compounding odds are about several billion to one.
In most circumstances I would say to give a show a chance before writing it off after only one episode, however this is so bad, that it's a problem in the directing. It feels like it was directed by Tommy Wiseau. A problem like that doesn't just go away after the first episode. This feels like a highschool movie project. Back to Winona Ryder... her character is in identically one character mode in every scene. And the character mode that she's in is hard to compare to anything I've seen before. She's in this perpetual frantic mode, but she doesn't seem genuinely frantic/panicked/stressed out. There are no words to express how ridiculously bad her acting is. I may just fast forward to the parts that she's in in the next episode, just so I could have a good laugh, which I'm sure will get old quick unless she transitions into another bad acted expression, but so far it's been just one expression in every scene. This show is rated well so my only rationale to that is, people are so desperate for anything science fiction related that they will embrace anything that falls into that realm. If this isn't a sign for how much demand there is for anything science fiction related than I don't what is.
Update - I watched the whole series. I don't take back how ridiculously bad the first episode is, but the show is decent after the 1st episode... not great, but decent. If that was the pilot episode I don't know how the show got picked up. The acting improves a lot after the first episode. Winona's is still bad, but it improves from laugh out loud bad. Why aren't there warnings telling people how bad the first episode is? Anyways, consider this a warning!
Just a funny note - In the 3rd episode there's an ex machina within an ex machina within an ex machina. I don't think I've ever witnessed a show have the balls to do that before. Thankfully it's not a pattern. I'll let a show slide on the occasional ex machina, because even the best of shows have them. In case you're curious what it was; Mild spoiler alert - it entails, a dude stumbling upon a coincidental house of a chick he knows that he just happened to have a random moment with earlier that day. Then proceeds to secretively take pics of them. In the process captures an astronomically coincidental picture, and the furthest fetched of them all. The next day the dude already has blown up prints of the pics and while walking around at school the same people who he took pics of decide to randomly grab the dudes school bag and see what he has inside only to find out that he took pics of them the night before. Oye Vey!!! The compounding odds are about several billion to one.