Dispatches from Elsewhere

Hard to imagine how they could have fucked this up worse. A start with such novelty and potential is squandered into the rest of the series being extremely contrived story developments that only serve gross overly sugary but under substanced plots and then the ending is unbelievably self-serving; off the wall in a way that could have been creative and interesting but was just very uncomfortable and masturbatory. Watch the first 3 eps then stop.

a cute premise, with endearing characters, that ultimately suffers from fatal 3rd act syndrome

This is one of the weirdest shows I've ever seen. It's really hard to describe so I won't bother. I'll just say it does a lot of really unique things, and has pretty good characters. The ending does something very surprising, which was cool but also didn't quite deliver the payoff for the characters we were getting to know all season so I'm a little bittersweet about it.

This might be the most lopsided thing I watched. There's captivating moments of sublety and grace and there's this underlying inclination of Jason to punch you down with a message. I'm glad it exists, but dial down the gimmicks a notch Jason.

Dispatches from Elsewhere is an intriguing tale that ultimately sacrifices its plot for its characters' "growth". At its core the show is great, building on the theme of perspective, change and pitfalls of everyday mundanity. Its ultimate message is well-meaning, even if debatably flawed. But its execution is a little wonky; A little slow to start (and end) and occasionally bloated with social issues, unnecessary drama and occasional pretentiousness. Grant is great, followed by Field.