Station Eleven

It is discomfort viewing. It’s essential viewing, too. ... Art teaches us about who we are and who we used to be for the sake of reconciling the two. That’s “Station Eleven’s” power.

It’s a show that’s resonant in a different way now than it would have been pre-pandemic, but I think it would have been incredibly powerful whenever it came out because its themes are timeless. ... It’s the first show since the end of “The Leftovers” that reminds me of that masterpiece.

Station Eleven is brilliant television. It’s one of the most profound meditations on love, loss, grief, and community I’ve ever seen.

At times dark and heartbreaking, it’s also luminous, wondrous, even funny — the most uplifting show about life after the end of the world that you are likely to see.

Station Eleven is a beautifully wrought piece of storytelling. ... Our world isn’t ending even though COVID is still a presence in it. But when you watch Station Eleven and become immersed in it, it really does become the whole wide world. What a gift.

Station Eleven is the quintessential case of an adaptation that doesn't just draw from the best parts of the original novel but actually finds a way to improve on the source material. Its singular flaw, really, is the timing of its release, but the final product is so provoking, poignant, and ultimately optimistic that it becomes an indelible triumph of television, a story that succeeds separately from the book, and one of the best small-screen contributions to 2021.

It is a masterpiece. ... The most impressive aspect of Station Eleven is how it works as an adaptation. It is the rare work of audio-visual media that not only skillfully translates the source material, but at times surpasses it.

“Station Eleven” probably sounds like the last thing you want to watch right now. And if it’s too much, too soon, that’s fair. But as we sit on the precipice of the pandemic’s third year, the way this particular story reframes how to look at the end of the world may also prove essential.

Station Eleven takes Mandel’s book and amps up its sense of a cozy post-apocalypse, where humanity comes together, rather than drifting apart. I entered the series deeply skeptical, and I left it feeling at least semi-hopeful for what humanity might yet become, even after the end. ... The alternation between storytelling modes also gives the show a pleasant rhythm once you fall under its spell.

Station Eleven is a slow burn. The first few episodes look beautiful but move at a stately pace. If you can stick with it, you will be rewarded.

Its stately pace and pandemic subject matter won’t be for everyone, but Station Eleven is an achievement of the tallest order, full of tenderness, experimentalism and captivating design.

On the style-substance spectrum, “Station Eleven” registers as a flawed but engrossing work whose narrative imperfections are masked by the considerable craft of its execution. And where it stumbles in terms of sense is often when it is also most beautiful. Shakespeare himself got away with that more than a few times.

It weaves the stories of its eight principal characters in a way that never feels redundant or overcomplicated.

It’s a series that demands both close attention and a passive willingness to let the words and meticulously crafted images wash over you, a collage that gradually forms itself but still demands your engagement.

It has an underbelly sufficiently dark that grown-up Kirsten's hands sport a generous number of the tattoo equivalents of gun-stock notches, keepsakes of her capable work with knives. There's also a pervasive feeling that someone—or something—is watching. And what's that mysterious comic book to which Kirsten keeps consulting as if it's a training manual?

It’s a weaving structure that is very literary. Somerville smartly plays to the strength of his medium, wisely combining certain threads and separating out some of the storylines into standalone episodes. ... Carrying the show through at all times is the strong ensemble.

There's nothing to get you thinking about what really matters than seeing how rickety the foundations of civilization can be, and the humaneness of the answers Station Eleven offers feel more comforting than troubling.

The first episode in particular feels like a high barrier to entry, albeit a necessary one, as it depicts the period immediately before the apocalypse and then the terrible day when the world seemingly dies all at once. ... The performances are all vivid and distinct in both the big roles and the smaller ones. ... Beautiful, haunting, and ultimately uplifting show.

There’s a deliberate pacing to the series that starts to weigh it down around the halfway point, when you’re left wondering if all these disparate storylines will ever converge. It requires some patience. More than I might have invested, were it not for professional obligations. But I’m glad I stuck with it because these threads do ultimately come together in ways that feel meaningful.

It’s impossible to predict whether audiences will be willing to indulge a series that so clearly echoes the world we’re currently living in, but on its own merits, Station Eleven proves to be a bittersweet and winsome series that deftly juggles its myriad characters and time periods.

If you dislike multiple timelines, then steer clear. It moves back and forth, starting with the outbreak and moving to 20 years after, then hopping back to one year after, or one day, or 43 days. In short, it requires commitment.

In the early episodes of the series, the stark beauty of the ruined world the characters inhabit is fully capable of carrying the show, but it doesn’t need to. Strong performances all around, particularly from Lawler as the child Kirsten, and scripts grounded in the characters’ relationships make every episode indelible. Things start to disintegrate toward the end, unfortunately.

The show is mostly about how nearly every character finds a sense of purpose and learns to become a better person after catastrophe. And, personally speaking, there’s something about that vision of doomsday uplift that — while stellarly acted and cleverly against-the-grain — just doesn’t resonate with or ring true to me. Sure, the helpers will always be there. So will the opportunists. Perhaps that’s why the series doesn’t truly kick in for me until the fourth installment. ... But in the end, “Station Eleven” may be too attached to its rose-colored glasses.

Chunkily paced, the flashbacks can appear random, and viewers coming in cold are likely to wonder why we’re spending time with, say, Gael García Bernal’s vain-actor character. Yes, he plays a role in Kirsten’s story (and Miranda’s, for that matter), but this “Station Eleven” struggles at times to draw meaning out of simple proximity. ... The depiction of theatrical performance here is moving — suggesting a power in connection, through storytelling, that sustains under the worst of circumstances. That spirit shines through a flawed but bighearted adaptation.

A disjointed but at times transcendent 10-part adaptation of Emily St. John Mandel's acclaimed novel. [6 - 19 Dec 2021, p.9]