I’ve come to realize I read a lot of apocalyptic and dystopian fiction, and watch the adaptations of that fiction. I don’t know why. I think it’s just because I’m fascinated and horrified by a vision of how everything in the world could go terribly wrong. I’m fun at parties!
I’ve also come to realize I’m picky about the apocalypse. (I’m using “apocalypse” as a general term. It’s not always the literal end of the world but kind of a series of horrible events that leave everything really messed up.) I’m very interested in the “during” of the apocalyptic event, as much or more than I am in the “after” when people are picking up the pieces. I’m fascinated in how exactly the big event happened and hate when they gloss over it. Show me the bomb dropping and the factors that led up to it. Show me how the pandemic spread. Show me how the government slid into totalitarianism.
I’m watching Station Eleven and I guess it’s OK. The book was much better. I know some of the changes from book to TV show are because some of my favorite passages in the book, like Miranda’s death, were too internal and they had to alter them to be more exciting for the screen. I know critics are supposed to judge the work in front of them and not the work they wish the artist had made, but I’m just a little disappointed that they’re not showing more of the chaos of the spread of the Georgia Flu. I loved the parts in the book with the grounded plane and the passengers seeing the chaos on the news and it slowly dawning on them how the world was about to fall apart. One of my favorite passages in the book was in the early-morning hours right before the story of the flu broke and that it was “the hours of near misses and miracles” that a main character didn’t catch the flu. I wish there had been a way to convey that in the TV show. (We’re not caught up yet so maybe they do this later.)
One thing that annoys me in this type of apocalyptic fiction is—and I’ve seen this in reviews of the Station Eleven show—that the actual inciting event is “not that interesting” or “beside the point.” I would argue that seeing the spread of a flu that kills 99 percent of humanity is, like, at least moderately interesting, you know? If it really happened right in front of me, I’d be engaged with what was going on. Think of COVID-19: Were you bored watching it spread and cause chaos in March 2020? And I think the death of almost 8 billion people would be the point.
The way we survive an apocalypse and evolve after makes for some fascinating fiction but I hate when they gloss over the “during.” My favorite part of The Stand was the chapter showing how journalists revolted and showed the public the extent of the flu, and when Stephen King alluded to uninfected people trying to escape New York and getting shot in the Lincoln Tunnel. I loved the World War Z book because it showed all the “during” of how the zombies almost wiped out humanity, and what it took to fight back. I love all the little glimpses of how America turned into Gilead in The Handmaid’s Tale.
Just don’t do what Fear the Walking Dead did. I remember being all excited when this show premiered because I wanted to see the beginning of the zombie epidemic and how society began to crumble. They showed a little of this and then it felt like they cut to “four weeks later” and everyone was in internment camps. Well, how did they get into those camps? Don’t gloss over it with ellipses and then become Walking Dead West. That show threw away the one thing it had setting it apart, and I stopped watching immediately. (I also couldn’t stand watching any more of Kim Dickens staring blankly at the zombie apocalypse, wondering if she left the oven on.)
I get that writers have no budget to depict the end of the world, while a TV show might not be able to afford showing worldwide chaos in detail. But just give me a little taste of how it happened, just to tantalize me.
