Wednesday, November 21, 2018

Homecoming

     Homecoming is a TV series on Amazon Prime Video,  based on a podcast of the same name, written by Eli Horowitz and Micah Bloomberg (who wrote the original podcast) and directed by Sam (Mr. Robot) Esmail. 

     It is billed as a "psychological thriller," which is true enough, though with a strong science-fictional element and a background of corporate greed that probably caught Esmail's attention -- on some levels, Mr. Robot is more or less Atlas Shrugged retold for anarcho-anticapitalists.*  Homecoming is a different kind of story, with far more light in its darkness, very much "in the Gothic mode," which is to say there's a good guy or two, a bad guy or two, we come to know which is which, and the story works out to an entirely satisfactory and nearly complete conclusion.  --Nearly complete; there's another season yet to come.  Nevertheless, the first season stands very well on its own and I recommend it to my readers. 

     If you like Theodore Sturgeon's science fiction, I think you'll like this series.  Unusually for modern television programs, each episode is a half-hour long and they often end with something unresolved; not (usually) quite a cliffhanger but close enough.  Having only a half-hour to work in -- fifteen minutes less than a commercially-interrupted "hour" of drama -- forces the writing, acting and direction to be remarkably efficient and Horowitz, Bloomberg and Esmail manage it with skill and unexpected touches.
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* Albeit with a side order of Chinese cyber-warfare and a hero with severe social anxiety.

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