Station Eleven

Station Eleven manages to weave the narrative elements of the post-apocalyptic story in an engaging manner that maintained suspense throughout the entire series.

The narrative flawlessly transports the audience back to “the before” time when emotional investment and suspense is needed. The myriad of personalities surviving beyond the lengths of “normal” society paint a story complicated to keep you guessing well into the final episode. While the electricity’s long run out for most of the world, The Traveling Symphony keeps the wheels turning.

Armed with modern day cars and a few horses to tow them around, we’ll be following The Traveling Symphony along their route that gifts survivors with the tales of Shakespeare. Although, the townsfolk are not the only ones benefitting from this arrangement as many cast-members fight and are often running from their own problems in life without cellphones.

Our journey with Jeevan (Himesh Patel) and a young Kirsten (Mackenzie Davis). Unless you are approaching the show completely blind, you can sense the echoes of the virus quickly approaching. You’ll often hear coughs in The Before and an eerie sense of the mundane as the audience can sense the end is coming.

The difficult dance of introducing a civilization killing epidemic into a narrative is swiftly executed in a believable yet harrowing way. Over the course of the first few episodes, we begin to see the downfall of our everyday delicacies such as surfing the web on our phone or electricity as of itself. None of this will be of surprise to the individuals that have visited Emily St. John Mandel’s novel Station Eleven, of which, the series is based off of.

The momentum of the show derives from learning how Kirsten and Jeevan survived in what many characters refer to as “the first 100 days” and an ominous figure named “the Prophet” who threatens the sanctity of The Traveling Symphony as they are a remainder of what society once was.

We’ll learn that the one consistent in the life of Kirsten was a picture book named Station 11. She often finds refuge in the confines of its pages as she deals with death, abandonment, and life beyond the thralls of supermarkets and concerts. The tale of an astronaut maintains her childlike wonder in the first 100 days, with her inability to separate herself from the book causing a stir between Jeevan and Kirsten. While Kirsten’s demeanor may seem harmless, her ability to defend those who she loves is quickly demonstrated to the audience in an early episode.

Station Eleven shines when the complicated relationships beyond the challenges of modern day society are put to the test. The Travelling Symphony is made-up of a wide cast of characters. Some come from “the before” while others were born after the deadly virus took hold. Many of the older survivors yearn for the before times, looking back on what they once had, with a select number of them attempting to recreate society within the security of an airport.

While the many aspects of life before are gone, the trauma remains and affects the decisions of several characters. The need for security above all else is at the forefront of one leader especially, discarding the idea of humanity to ensure the safety of those within the fortress they’ve built over time.

This series is riddled with incredible twists and turns that will have you chomping at the bit, wondering what’s next. The way in which all the characters are connected is mind-blowing and I wouldn’t dare spoiling that for you. Unless you find a way to guess the big reveal, the penultimate moment all is revealed creates a powerful episode of television as you witness both the best and worst of society in the relationships of the interconnect community. Ulterior motives maintain the forward momentum of the story. The adaptation of Emily’s work finds a way to uniquely tie the lives of the before and after into a meaningful tale of those trying to survive beyond the collapse. How that life looks is envisioned differently from character to character but one thing is for certain. That The Traveling Symphony will stay on the wheel, performing for all to see.