I think of the summer season as light-entertainment time. And although there’s been some pretty intense programming this summer, which I’ll leave for another post, I have to say I’m particularly enjoying the lighter fare.
It’s fascinating to me that this
stuff I think of as “light” is actually horror or suspense. But there’s an unreality to it, and often a
dark humor, that makes it feel comforting rather than wholly unsettling. And as I think about it, summer really did
fill up with this sort of light horror/suspense over the last few years. Harper’s Island, The Whispers, The Strain,
Extant, Intruders, Wayward Pines, Zoo…and those are just a few off the top of
my head. Some are more seriously
threatening than others, but few really feel like danger. They take place in far off locales: islands, pasts or futures, or parallel worlds
where the laws of nature have changed. So the stakes are high for the
characters, but those stakes will not bleed into our worlds. I think they’re watchable precisely because
of that light touch—watching people struggle to survive wouldn’t be fun if we
thought it could actually happen.
Instead, just as science fiction can explore political possibility in a
“safe” way, horror and suspense can explore humanity’s darker potentials
without threatening our faith in humanity’s fundamental good. Perhaps they can even be an antidote to our
own, more personal fears, distracting us from more realistic everyday horrors
with more fantastic ones.
Here’s a few whose topics are pretty
scary, but whose executions feel light.
Add these to some of the more suspense/horror based entries from the
last post, and it’s a pretty big crowd!
Houdini & Doyle (Fox,
UK/US/Canada co-production, new to US.
Period law enforcement procedural).
Watched: season
Premise: Author/spiritualist Arthur Conan Doyle and
illusionist/debunker Harry Houdini team up with a female Scotland Yard officer
(based loosely, albeit a bit out of time, on Edith Smith) to solve crimes that
may seem supernatural.
Promise: This AU tweaks history a little bit—but doesn’t
have to tweak it too far—to come up with a clever little concept. Most of the episodes take the question “is X
(usually an unexplained murder or con scheme) really supernatural?” as their
starting point. If that were the whole
game, it would get tired (see, e.g., Proof), but it’s mostly the framing
mechanism for a nice Victorian-era procedural with a personal arc for each
character. Most effective is the Scotland
Yard detective, who’s very competent and defiant in the face of pervasive
sexism and misogyny.
Verdict: Fun, and better than the average summer
procedural.
BrainDead (CBS, new. Supernatural dramedy.)
Watched: season so far
Premise: A few people doggedly fight an invasion of
alien brain-eating bugs that inhabit politicians and make them more partisan.
Promise: Here’s everything you need to know about this
show: Jonathan Coulton sings the “previouslies”
before each episode. This show has come
out at the perfect time and its tone is cartoonishly amusing without being
slight. It’s biting satire about the
American political process and cute entertainment at the same time. I love that its heroes are women and people
of color. And its message is at once optimistic
and fatalistic: A few people paying
attention can change things by working together, but the vast majority of political
thought is (literally) mindless and destructive and if we don’t watch out, we
might as well have our brains eaten by space bugs.
Verdict: I’m totally charmed.
Dead of Summer (Freeform, new. Horror.)
Watched: season so far
Premise: In the 1980s, a group of camp
counselors deal with a local satanic cult.
Promise: This show wouldn’t have to be nearly as good
or as entertaining as it is, but it knows its tropes well and consistently surpasses
them just far enough to stay surprising.
There’s always just a little bit more going on (with the characters, the
mystery, the horror) than one might expect.
The story combines traditional “this is what is happening” storytelling
with flashbacks into the histories of the characters and the camp to keep us
engaged with each and to let us know than there’s always just a little more
going on than meets the eye. The
characters have very human secrets and struggles that contrast nicely with the
very inhumane things happening at the camp.
And I’m fascinated by the way the show weaves in and out of evoking “Slender
Man” mythology without ever quite embodying it.
Verdict: Good Summer Camp Horror.
On the DVR/Still Unreviewed: Billions,
DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Underground, Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, The
Girlfriend Experience, The Last Panthers, Feed the Beast, Cleverman, Queen of
the South, Roadies, The A Word.
