The review
The world ends, and everybody's delighted about it. An alien virus folds almost all of humanity into one calm, helpful, relentlessly pleasant hive mind, and Carol Sturka, a romantasy novelist the show's own tagline calls the most miserable person on Earth, is one of thirteen people it can't touch. Vince Gilligan set it in Albuquerque again, which makes Breaking Bad the obvious comparison. Couch dad gave that one an 8. This one gets a 6: "so-so but not terrible."
The idea is the best thing in it, and his Story 9 agrees. It's a question built like a trap: if everyone around you is happy, kind and at peace, what exactly are you fighting for? The show never hands you the answer, which is the kind of storytelling he likes. Depth gets a 7.
Now, the cast. He gave it a 7. Rhea Seehorn won a Golden Globe and a Critics' Choice Award for Carol, and she carries whole episodes opposite a hive mind that will not stop being nice to her. That's an easy 9 from me. To be fair to him, he calls the acting "objectively great." His problem is Carol herself: "I can't stand that kind of person IRL." He handed me the page, so if he wants to veto my 9, he can come and write it himself.
Where it really loses him is the clock. "The 'brilliance' didn't do it for me," he says, and "pacing does affect me." Pace is a 5, the lowest point on the hexagon, and he wasn't alone in checking his watch: Forbes called the plot "stretched-thin," and The Independent found it "listless." The Peripheral has almost the same shape from him: a strong Story, a slow Pace, the same 6.
Impact is a 7, fair for a show whose scariest image is a crowd of people being polite. Replay is a 4. He only rewatches a story he wants to pull apart, and this one, for him, didn't need a second pass.
So who's it for? Anyone who wants sci-fi with a real idea at its center and Rhea Seehorn at full power, and doesn't mind a show that takes its time. If Carol doesn't get under your skin, you'll probably like it more than he did. A second season is on the way, and a 6 leaves him plenty of room to come around.
Pluribus: a 9 of an idea at a 6 of a pace.
