On a warm September day several years ago, I was blindfolded in the lobby of a Chicago theatre and sent off on a quest through the Loop with just a cell phone and a series of videos. I spent the next couple of hours interacting with actors and being pushed out of my comfort zone. And I loved every second of it. Whenever I tell people the ins and outs of the interactive journey (which included being blindfolded in the back of a car and having a “severed head” put in my lap – it was a riff on Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure,” lest you think it was some horror story), I often get one of two reactions: That is so cool! or That’s insane! But, I’m a huge fan of interactive theatre. I’ve spent several evenings watching the downfall of Macbeth in a Manhattan warehouse, I’ve traded riddles with the Mad Hatter in Brooklyn, I’ve attended a party with Jay Gatsby in London, and I’ve desperately tried to make sense of Edgar Allan Poe’s works in Chicago. All of this is a way of letting you know that I’m absolutely the perfect audience for AMC’s new whimsical and immersive drama series Dispatches from Elsewhere.
I loved everything about the concept behind the series, which is based on the documentary The Institute, and follows four very different people who are thrown together into a team to “play” an interactive theatre piece. However, unlike any of the pieces I’ve experienced this one is a full alternate reality game that pulls them out of their everyday lives and immerses them in a world where two warring factions – the potentially sinister Jejune Institute and the white-hat disrupters who oppose them – try to entice the players to support their cause. With an emphasis on how such whimsical escapades can give those searching for meaning in their ordinary (or disappointing) everyday lives a jolt of new meaning, Dispatches from Elsewhere leans into the strange and, in doing so, allows the audience to feel the same spark as its characters.
The limited series comes from the mind of Jason Segel (yes, the guy from How I Met Your Mother and Forgetting Sarah Marshall), who wrote the first two episodes, directed the pilot, and stars as the show’s main protagonist Peter, a sad sack who avoids meaningful human interactions on a daily basis and doesn’t understand why he feels so empty. We’re introduced to the entire game through our introduction to Peter, so the series has a harder time putting us in the headspace of the other three key characters in the pilot. It tries to remedy that by giving us spotlight episodes on Simone (Eve Lindley, who is an absolute find here, and I hope she gets a major boost from the series), Janice (Sally Field, who is clearly having a blast), and Fredwynn (Andre Benjamin of Outkast, who is playing the show’s biggest cypher of a character so far – his spotlight will be episode four), and it works, to a certain extent.
While the pilot claims to dispense with the typical character development exposition (in a fun, lighthearted manner from self-described “reliable narrator” Richard E. Grant), the pilot is still full of it, just a slightly more inverted manner. We are told exactly who Peter is, but, of course, it’s not completely correct. This might be who Peter is to the rest of the world (and, by extension, how he occasionally perceives himself in moments of self-reflection), but it isn’t who Peter actually is. The problem with this is that we’re shown just enough hints that there’s more to Peter than meets the eye, but the writing refuses to engage with them. Instead, it moves on, focusing on the game and not on its impact on the show’s de facto lead.
Simone’s showcase offers more of the same. We get elements of how Simone appears to the world*, but we don’t get deep enough into Simone’s own views of herself to juxtapose the character we see and who she actually is. Which is a real shame, as Lindley is incredibly engaging and makes you want to learn more about Simone beyond the cursory breakdown we’re given. We definitely don’t need fully-formed character portraits this early in the limited series’ run, but we should also know more about what makes each character tick after an episode devoted to telling us just that. Instead, we have descriptors to hang onto both Peter and Simone, but no deeper understanding of either character.
*Simone is largely defined in her spotlight episode by her gender as transwoman, which is a bit of a bummer to see. She is shown struggling to find her place within the LGBTQ+ community, running away from a Pride Parade after she’s called upon to offer her own statement about trans rights. While this could be read as a younger transwoman nervous and unsure where she fits in a world that is often cruel and dangerous for transwomen (certainly a valid story to tell, if one that is all too common with trans characters), it reads more that she’s just nervous about being out and open with those in the world (again, not a problem on its face, but the writing never takes the time to dive into this fear). She laments not having any friends (she lives with her Nan, who appears to be her only confidante), signaling she doesn’t want to put herself out there at all. Simone’s role as the perceived love interest for Peter is treated as just that – she’s the girl he’s falling for, nothing special about it – which, I have to admit, is nice to see. But I couldn’t help but feel something was missing from the writing of “Simone” the episode. We learned more about Peter (and how Simone views him) than we did about who Simone really is. I don’t know if that’s a facet of having a cis straight man writing the episode, or if it’s a larger problem with the series: there may be four main characters, but Peter is the clear lead at this stage of the game.
I’m enchanted enough with the series’ premise to keep watching its entire ten-episode limited run regardless of how well-drawn the characters turn out to be (although I would love it if the series really took the time to flesh them out down the line with the same nuance its willing to provide for its story and setting). I suspect the Janice deep-dive episode next week will be more successful at character building than these initial two episodes (for one, it’s Sally Field, and it’s also the first spotlight episode to center around a character who has had limited interaction with Peter, so the episode will naturally be forced to reckon more with Janice and Fredwynn more than Peter). Dispatches from Elsewhere has a lot going for it and it’s different than anything else on TV (RIP to its AMC precursor, Lodge 49, that also shared a similar heart of whimsy). There are certainly some kinks to work out and I’m not fully sold on its ability to deliver a satisfying tale when all is said and done, but, like all immersive experiences, I’m willing to take the journey.
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Acting
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