Lore

The show sometimes relies too much on the power of its actors to bring home the reality of its horror, and this doesn’t always work--but when it does, it works very well.

Lore is a bit arch, and, predictably enough, a bit melodramatic. You wouldn’t exactly call the show’s historical re-enactments over-produced. ... Morbidly entertaining.

The majority of each episode consists of uninspired reenactments full of expository dialogue explaining the thought process behind decisions like digging up your dead daughter and turning her ashes into a tonic for your ailing son to drink. The idea of otherwise reasonable people doing irrational things out of fear is certainly an intriguing one. But surely there must be better ways to convey that than inert dialogue scenes.

This series wants to be informative. It can entertain with its information, but the audience has no investment in what’s going on beyond curiosity, and live-action scenes take you out of what’s happening more than it endears audiences to the real people.

As a visual series, it is stuck between the bulky, stiff material plane and the ethereal, failing to successfully transform into something at least as powerful, if not stronger, than what it already is.

Lore is a lackluster advertisement for the podcast for non-listeners and rarely distinctive enough to stand out as a TV show in its own right.