Peak TV Treasure: The OA
Are you overwhelmed by how much television is available right now? Is life getting in the way of keeping up with the shows you wanna try out? We feel your tube-related pain. Here’s a handy feature that’ll help you locate the hidden gems in this era of Peak TV.
NETWORK | Netflix
CREATED BY | Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij
NUMBER OF EPISODES | 8
EPISODE LENGTH | 60 mins.
PREMISE | Marling (of the British miniseries Babylon) stars as Prairie Johnson, a young woman who went missing years ago as a blind girl, but returns to the community she grew up in with her sight inexplicably restored. Alternately seen as a miracle and a dangerous threat, Prairie gradually confides the fantastic story of her “missing” years to a small group of locals, in order to recruit them for a mission.
WORTH YOUR TIME IF YOU ENJOY… | Both Netflix’s own Stranger Things, which similarly collided small-town life with the unfathomable, and Sense8, in which a disparate group of misfits work toward a larger cause. If you as I did can go into this series “cold,” knowing little more than what’s described above, all the better, since there is no predicting where it will take you. It’s important to keep that in mind as the first episode drags on (and on), giving little indicator of the far more interesting road ahead. On the acting side, Marling keeps you glued to The OA’s tale, Jason Isaacs fills his role perfectly and The Office‘s Phyllis Smith brings much pathos to the proceedings.
YOU SHOULD PROBABLY ALSO KNOW… | The Season 1 finale… has its detractors (and perhaps deservedly so). Just as the episodes preceding it were unpredictable, the finale left some jaws dropped, but not in a reverential way. It’s an easy binge, a small investment of time to make and form your own opinion.
IS IT COMING BACK? | Yes. Just seven weeks after The OA‘s release, Netflix ordered “Part II.”
WHERE CAN I WATCH IT? | All eight Season 1 episodes are available to stream on Netflix.
READ UP ON OTHER PEAK TV TREASURES
Insecure • Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath • One Day at a Time • Review
The Carmichael Show • Halt and Catch Fire • Fleabag • 12 Monkeys • Lethal Weapon
Sweet/Vicious • Humans • People of Earth • The Missing • Search Party
What? The ending is amazing!
It always astounds me when I fail to have even heard of a show. I like to think I’m a tv expert and this hurts the ego.
Don’t feel bad. Netflix dropped this show last year with almost no advertising at all. Word of mouth is what built this show’s fanbase.
I felt like I had wasted an entire day after watching this as when it was over I wondered exactly what I had watched. Sure, kept me watching to see what happened, but felt like a total let down when it was over. I didn’t know they had picked up a Part 2, but won’t waste my time watching it.
Same. I didn’t really understand it and found it boring. I only watched it because people at work were raving about it. Won’t watch the 2nd part.
I got bored after the 3rd episode and just could not watch it anymore.
Love, LOVE this show. I easily watched the entire first season 3 times within a week (to be fair, I had the time to). There so many new bits and bobs you pick up when you rewatch it. Will definitely give it another go in the near future as well as before Part 2 airs.
I am one of those people who actually liked the season finale. I get why people wouldn’t but I did not expect some of the very extreme reactions some people had. This is one of those shows that has a very niche market but it’s hard to explain why without spoilers. I agree that the less you know going in the better.
I couldn’t stop watching the show, it is addicting.
I loved the ending!!!!
Ugh, sorry for being the hater here, but after a promising start The OA just took a huge nosedive. Very interesting world and questions, but it just turned silly. That ending was laughable, and not in a good way.
I love this feature. There’s just SO much tv and I’m really busy so I’m going to check out all the ones you recommend. The OA was already on my list, but now it’ll move a little higher up
We watched this cause people talked about how amazing it was and all that and at the end we were like WTF. It seems like the creators decided in episode 7 that they had run out of ideas and just wrote an ending that made no fraking sense and had nothing to do with the show. It didn’t know what it wanted to be.
Why would it get renewed when it was such a mess? Is season 2 going to do the same thing? Build a story and then all of a sudden drop it for a totally meaningless ending?
Got 8 hours of your life you don’t care about? Then watch it. Otherwise, you’d be better off getting a root canal without Novocaine…
You summed it up perfectly.
There were hints to the ending throughout the entire series. I’m not going to mention them because of Spoilers but they were there. The creators of the show have said they already know how the show will end and even told Netflix what is was when they pitched it to them.
Also, all root canals (in the US) are done without Novocaine since dentists stopped using it about 30 years ago. Either lidocaine or articaine is used since they are more effective and have way less instances of allergic reactions.
Insufferably boring. We made it through 7 episodes – zzzzzzzzzzzzzz – before giving up. Did something ever happen? It was like the English version of Solaris with sleeping pills.
I liked the show, definitely didn’t love it, but it was engaging enough to keep me watching. It was a bit too pretentious and full of itself, but also fun and insightful at times. And then before watching the finale, I’d read some spoilers about it and fully expected to hate it, yet… I kind of loved it. The open ending was very fitting and left me satisfied. Can’t imagine how they want to continue it, though.
It’s very much correct to say that it’s best to go into this show with little or no prior knowledge. I saw it available on Netflix, read the short 30 word synopsis, and decided it was worth a try. I was SO sucked in! This show keeps you hooked through a combination of good story telling and moments where you just have to keep watching to find out where the heck this thing is going! I was torn on the ending…partly loved it, partly hated it, but I’ll definitely be back for Season 2!
I loved this show. Watched it all in one day. I wasn’t a fan of the ending because it felt a bit out of nowhere but I was still extremely moved by it.
Another great Netflix show is 3%. No one else seems to have watched it but it’s fantastic.
I also recommend this show, so many twists and turns that I didn’t see coming. Also, good luck on finding out what The OA actually stands for… It frustrated me a lot, because I knew immediately what it stood for, it just takes a while for the show to tell you. At least that was my experience.
The finale is amazing. After watching the series intently i was just amazed. I actually laughed out loud for a good 2 minutes. Not guffawed or snickered or shook my head in disbelief just laughed out loud. In fact i think i laughed so hard I was in tears. I actually needed that laugh so no hard feelings OA