All episodes dropped yesterday in the UK - I’m 2 and a half in and enjoying it a lot. Sci-fi mystery isn’t for Mrs Macau so no binging for me.
They chose to have no previews nor, it seems, advertising prior to the show airing.
Other Dopers must be watching, surely?
MiM
Two eps in, intrigued. Will report back later.
I will be watching this now my Westworld viewing is over. I’ll report back in awhile.
No time to watch it just yet, but it is in my queue and I’m looking forward to it. Partly, it will depend on whether I want to watch the last half of Luke Cage first, or let Luke continue sitting on the back burner.
Ooooh…we found Luke Cage to be the most boring show we watched this year.
We are just starting it right now. I’ll check back after.
Well. Hmmmmm. Wut? Hmmmmmm. OK. Wut? Eh? FFS.
This is my review of The OA.
Not to jack this thread, but we felt like it was dragged out 2-3 eps too long. The dance between the bad guys seemed to go on like a stuck record.
I was strongly reminded of a previous Marling darling, Sound of My Voice. Marling played very close to the same character, and there were similarities in the plot and themes of that movie and this series. Her choices in both strike me as rather… transparent.
I’m rather ambivalent about the show, and I imagine a number of 'Dopers will find it very annoying or very intriguing (or both). There’s some New Age stuff that doesn’t quite track for me, but the show piqued my curiosity enough to convince me to follow through til the end (despite the obviousness of some of the techniques used to generate that curiosity). I guess I would say that the show had a lot of promise, but it also had a lot of room for improvement.
I was really impressed by Phyllis Smith’s acting. She brought so much depth and realism to her role, I was touched by her story more than anyone else’s.
I’m another one who got within a few eps of the end of Luke Cage and got bored put it for awhile and put off finishing it.
Wikipedia says The OA has gotten mixed to positive reviews and compared both favorably and unfavorably to Stranger Days. Whatever that means. I really liked Stranger Days so I’ll give it a shot.
We did watch the first episode.
Mad props to a show for making it’s opening 57 minutes the opening before the credits. When the credits hit, I laughed. No way all that was the opening.
And you know what? It was. After that, she began to tell her life story…which will probably make up a good chunk of the core show(??).
Anyway, we will definitely watch the next one.
I’m also one episode in.
So far, so good.
I just finished it, and I really, really liked it. Fantastic cast, weird, wonderful story, and creatively told. It’s not perfect, but it’s well worth watching. Fair warning: If you’re the kind of person who can’t just let a story wash over you, you’re probably not going to like it.
I won’t spoil it but for me the series went downhill rapidly after the first few episodes. Disappointing although a shout out for the actors who were all excellent and deserving of a superior script to work with.
That works for me. We watched the first one last night.
We had the same reaction to the credits. I would like to know why they felt it necessary to insert it there?
My thoughts, one episode in. Woman in trouble, separated from her child (most likely) or lover (also possible). She has some sort of psychic powers, which oddly don’t seem to help her at all with her parents. I find it incredibly odd how much personal agency she has outside the house, and how little she has at home. It’s like she’s a different person. The list of restrictions for her seem very arbitrary. I’m not certain how they’re supposed to help her recovery.
It’s all very dark and moody. I wish the story had done a better job of establishing why we should care about this woman, or this story, but really that hasn’t happened yet. Most of the secondary characters are assholes or twits. I would probably never watch it again, but we will. My husband likes dark and moody and paranormal. 
I only got to watch half an hour before getting interrupted. I’ll give it another go again tonight. I was put off rather early by yet another nasty teenage jock. These poor guys have a worse rep in popular culture than Nazi’s. I have to think a number of nerdy television writers are getting payback for being beaten up by athletic all-American types in their youth.
The first ep was interesting, if slow. Eps two and three were boring enough I considered quitting, then it got better after that. Overall I liked it well enough, especially the acting. Homer impressed me.
Not sure I want a sequel or not, but
[spoiler]There’s clearly some weird shit going on and I’m not talking about Prairie’s stories to the high school kids. Who is that FBI guy who doesn’t seem very FBI and works in a building that appears completely deserted except for his still unpacked boxes? Was that just sloppy production, not bothering to make an empty building look occupied? What was he doing back at Prairie’s house? Planting books? When did previously blind Prairie find the time to buy and read those books and make up her story?
There were other parts of “real life” with the high school kids that seemed unrealistic. I can’t tell if it was done on purpose or not. I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire show took place in Prairie’s head, wherever she is. There was an unreal quality to the whole thing.
Her story kind of reminded me of Life of Pi. It’s evidently based on real events, but heavily painted over with imagination and delusion. Her real experience over the last nine years must have been even worse than described, or just very boring.[/spoiler]
Yep. I just finished the last episode and this is exactly what I came here to post. I was strongly reminded of The Sound of My Voice. Before I started the last two episodes I had figured out that the ending was going to use the same little ploy of “none of it’s real–oh, wait, maybe it IS real… or is it?!.. roll credits.” See also: I Origins, starring Brit Marling.
Still, I enjoyed the journey. The characters were interesting, and Prairie’s story–true or not–was compelling.
Homer looked familiar to me, but I couldn’t remember from where, so I looked up the actor. He was Saoirse Ronan’s love interest in the movie Brooklyn.
I am two episodes in…and I hope this doesn’t turn out to be the kind of thing where we wonder whether all the supernatural stuff really happened, or if it was all in her head.
Such an obvious direction to take things.