See the bottom for link to Colbert spoof; and here is my one-liner about that: "As a new fan just watching season 1 recently, I must say this is hilarious, and awesome they got actual cast."
Now on to the content actually reviewing the show:
It was a bit slow moving at first, but still pretty much doing its job adequately of a dystopian, funky setting, so it was "ok, this could go someplace good or it could fizzle" . . . and then it kept being interesting (and gripping character, especially Helly doing what she does; I'm no fine analyst of acting, but I thought she was great, subtle but tense, especially when she says goodbye to Dylan . . . and Dylan being the one to sacrifice what he most of all knew the psychological pull of from being the only one to have experienced it), and then that ending stuck the landing hard: perfect tension build jumping between especially the three scenarios of innie Mark in his outie world, same for Helly (and the reveal of that fact. . . . wow), and Dylan not sure how long he can hold the connection) (but Irving's more character-driven investigation is gripping on its own grounds), and then those two big lines of impact in the outie world right at the cut to black, and Irving, even though not saying anything, just that out in the cold, desperately banging on the door trying to find personal connection before the mechanical connection breaks.
And theme . . . balls to the wall. Especially if the symbolism they intend is what I read in it (I think it can be read this way legitimately either way, even if they have some other symbolic connection in mind that also works well just more satisfying if they did intend my reading too] . . . only a scientismist ever says that only one reading can be true because only one can be factual [for those Christians of an intellectually self-absorbed stripe who think that's just me being a snotty sophist, go read C. S. Lewis's "Myth Become Fact" essay---it's in either the God in the Dock collection or the Christian Reflections collection---hopefully coming from one of your icons rather than a heathen like myself will have some impact).
My reading of the theme is: The super whiteness is pretty dominant, so it is a white world doing something to itself. What is it doing to itself? It is making identities that it then abuses. One of the sort of eye-opening moments for me in college as a lit major was in a class on 20th-century American novel, reading Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, with a guy I got to know who had transferred in from SRU as also a phil/lit double major (sorry GCC, but some of your lit majors are pretty weak sauce, and Dan and I used to have our own conversation before and after class but not really find a way in to class discussion, and despaired of trying . . . and Sorry Dr Stansbury, I know it wasn't your fault things can be so banal at GCC), and who had had a bit more existentialist philosophy than I, and could explain how the novel fit existentialist tropes, and especially the idea of existence before essence, which then hit me: there is no identity that fits this better than the African American identity: disconnected from African roots and not allowed to make the connections of a full "American," and so no concrete cultural characteristics handed down, and yet still a distinct ethnic/cultural identity, and existence but with no positive essence other than slave.
But, are the innies symbolic only of the African American identity? No. there are two bereft children of the structural and economic racism in the origins of the US: the African American and the poor white. And remember, the innies are the same brain apparatus and mental capacities of the outies; not just the same level, but actually really the same material person-hood, identical The poor white is ostensibly the same race as the rich white, but also abused and abandoned, not to the level of African Americans, but still abused (and then convinced by those same white overlords that the raw deal is from the "liberals" and minorities and efforts to improve the situation for minorities . . . I have been saddened to hear young adults parrot what they have been handed by biased "teachers" about how some of the states were treated very badly in the Reconstruction era: the truth is that the poor whites got a very raw deal; plantation owners got reimbursed for "property" loss, including losing slaves as property to abolition).
Caveats:
(1) I'm not saying African Americans have remained where white European "christians" put them. From the beginning there have been very resourceful people who have learned a lot of skill and then escaped and been able to use it well to effectively make their way in the world of free Americans, or been especially great orators for their people, like Frederich Douglas. But it was starting from a brutally destitute place, not only materially but also psychologically as regards cultural identity.
(2) There are those who criticize ANY discussion of existentialist theme as anything other than completely evil, and so would write me off for using "existence before essence" (most prominently formulated by Jean Paul Sartre, if not the founder of existentialism named such then at least its first president). And I agree in belief in God and that creatures have an essence given by God before being brought into existence, there from the very first instance of existence, and that creatures are brought into existence AS an instance of that essence. But, if "existence before essence" is such an evil idea as they claim, and yet some people (white , European "christians") brought into being a situation and an instance that it works so well to describe . . . then how evil must those people be who made that situation?
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