Station Eleven (TV Mini Series) Wheel of Fire (2021) User Reviews

Decent start for the genre

[rmmil · 7/10 · 23 December 2021]

The genre, post apocalyptic survival, is filled with awful versions of itself, so I appreciate that this wasn't completely terrible in its beginning.

I don't particularly like the Jeevan character, I don't like how Hollywood portrays panic attacks, if nothing else.

My biggest fault for episode one was a minor but weird plot hole: That wasn't $10k in groceries, lol. Wtf was up with that total? 10k for... 6-8 carts (okay, I think it was $9625 or so, but still)? There's nothing in the store that could possibly come to that total. Obviously written by some lazy screenwriter who hasn't had to (ever?) buy their own groceries.

And who would buy "$10k" worth of groceries without a vehicle, in the snow? Maybe it was supposed to denote desperation, but then why was he moving so slowly and deliberately the whole time? The character's actions didn't match the situation.

Other than the grocery store trip, though, decent. I'll keep watching and we'll see how bad this gets (every thing in this genre eventually turns awful, it's inevitable!).

Covid19 2019 vibes

[aboalhyjaa · 8/10 · 22 December 2021]

Amazing cinematography with even more stunning background music.

Loved the theme and as the review above me said you actually feel trapped like you're in the same situation our cast are!

Interesting Premise for a Show

[kyttness · 10/10 · 17 December 2021]

I enjoyed this first episode a lot. The cinematography was beautiful and the emotional connection the audience feels with Jeevan is established early on. This episode does an excellent job making you feel trapped. I found myself feeling the same emotions as Jeevan was throughout the arc of this episode. This episode is fairly straightforward but be forewarned episode 2 is a whole different ball game - and not in a good way.

a Quiet and Elegant view of the end

[sirendendeago · 10/10 · 22 December 2021]

I might rate it after I watched all the episodes but as a fan of this book, I love how the series captures the heart of the book...

E01: Wheel of Fire This is the beginning of the Georgia Flu Pandemic. It might sound scary considering the ongoing pandemic but the flu in this series is much dangerous and quicker so you will go past that. The strange thing I feel watching this pilot is there is a warm sensation watching Kirsten and Jeevan interact with each other even in the middle of cold snow. We are introduced more with Jeevan and Kirsten while in the book they only meet for a while, and I love how it turns out. Also, that plane scene is so subtle.

Kirsten and Javeen

[Kirpianuscus · 4 May 2022]

If you looking for accuracy , maybe, it is not the episode for you.

If you loved the novel, each innovation gives more power to story . Because the mark of pandemy is intense.

Sure, high expectation about a novel who seems out of adaptation. But it works and the relation between Kirstin and Jeevan works just well.

Fair acting, fair cinematography and the carol sound in hospital is just thrilling. The young. Matilda Lawler and Himesh Patel are just a beautiful team. The young Kirstin reminds, in some measure, to me, The Little Prince of Saint - Exupery.

Short, read the novel by Emily St. John Mandel ! And after you read the last page, discover this episode , not as remember of images known, not to compare with the lines of book but for meeting with new nuances .

The start of something great

[jdank37 · 10/10 · 14 January 2022]

This review is coming after having watched the season finale earlier today. This episode was really great first time around and hooked me in but going back and watching this after finishing the series just hits different. What an amazing show and episode.

promising first chapter, entertained, surprising

[alfonso_de_souza · 10/10 · 31 July 2022]

Very good starting, the ending music was a great decission, i didn't expect that. Have some dubts with the script like other guy sayd.. but is ok.. Is very intriguing and what a images on that... amazing photography.. was cool.. hope it get better... let's see. Was annoying for a while but realistic i think..

Dialogue. Dialogue, please

[jllagunos · 6/10 · 15 January 2022]

The story is interesting. The cinematography, delightful. Even the music is great. But the dialogue was written by a sleepy, detached person. The first scene alone was as beautiful in it's imagery as it was awful in the script...

Awkard writing, useless characters

[JustHavingALook · 5/10 · 19 September 2023]

Awkward writing, so so acting, decent cinematography and production design, ok sound design .

Well, I tried but nope cannot like something like this that screams lazy writing for its illogical development.

The main guy just wonders around oblivious. Ok it makes sense to have the protagonist react to the events, but please: how about a bit more proactive? So we care about him? We can't.

The looming virus... well, it's of course an interesting starting point but again too illogical to see doctors and nurses with no masks, no caring about coughing...

the fact that the secondary characters are basically one dimension flat lame people is such a turn off.

The really bad stuff: the main guy basically takes a girl with him and no one cares. He tries to help her reach home because... who knows. Weird.

Dialogues are fragmented, unrealistic, sloppy The sequence with the supermarket carts is so bizarre and dumb that I was actually surprised that someone could get it approved and shot. I mean, a looong line of carts all full to the brim and the guy is just going around like it's nothing? Sure. Please don't offend our intelligence the ending is just surreal, emerging from a room after the armageddon like it's a breeze. Bro: nothing would have worked, no water, no electricity no nothing, you would be dead.

OK episode if you don't mind using ZERO brain power

[scroodgemc · 3/10 · 29 December 2023]

So many things in this episode that make ZERO sense. No logic whatsoever. Just really lazy writing. Basically the whole episode has zero logic. Here are just a few.

The story tries to make it seem like it's totally normal and not creepy at all for an adult man to just take a random 8 year old girl on a train. If her guardian/wrangler was missing, he would have found someone else from the play that knows the little girl and let them take care of her. Instead the man just takes it upon himself to take this girl away, put her on a train and bring her home. As if no one will be worried about her? Weird and super creepy.

While in the middle of a massive city, there are literally zero people inside a grocery store except one cashier. What? Then while pushing a train of shopping carts through the snow, there are also zero people, zero traffic, zero anything. Just one guy in a car stuck on a tree. What?

Doorman in the brother's apartment lobby just decided to sit there for 2 months and freeze to death? Never got up once? I must be missing something. No logic.

8 year old girl finds out while in an apartment with 2 strange men that there is a life threatening flu going around and not once does she get emotional or want to find her parents. What?

It almost feels like whoever wrote this was not an actual human. Very strange story. I give it 3 stars because of how absolutely bizarre the story-writing is. It actually makes me want to keep watching to see if it'll somehow make sense in the next episode.

An episode so bad I won't finish the series

[jpw0003-950-935601 · 4/10 · 23 July 2022]

Straight after having finished the book, I watched this episode. Within 15 minutes, I was completely turned off by the writing, acting, and casting.

How hard would have been to have Jeevan attempt CPR, rather than having him come off as a complete idiot who just runs on-stage thinking he can help by doing absolutely nothing? And we're supposed to believe his doctor of a sister, so concerned about this new virus that she calls him in the middle of a hectic ER to warn him to blockade himself with their brother, is just walking around not wearing a mask during a very contagious pandemic while barking snarky orders at people and coughing directly onto her hand? And somehow, 5 carts of groceries adds up to $10k? I know it's Canada and stuff is expensive there, but come on. And then Jeevan goes from "I don't want to 'kidnap' you during this armagheddon scenario, so take a cab if you want" to telling the most unbelievable lie in the history of lying in the span of 5 seconds? And of course the blatant affirmative action casting of Miranda. Just a shoddy job all around.

Weird writting.

[Shikady · 4/10 · 9 February 2023]

A grown man takes an 8 year old and nobody bats an eye wtf...it's like an AI wrote the episode.

Actor died on stage, for some reason MC goes there to ask for a doctor and just stays there for plot reasons. 8 yo little girl MC is an actress on the play and nobody's taking care of her even when she's 8. The one that supposed to take care of her went with the dude that died and left her there all alone...at night. Far away from her home and she even took her key. Ok I guess.

MC, for some reason, decided to take her home. Her sister called him, telling him about a virus ( OMG later on at the hospital...the sister DOCTOR that knew that something was going around, uses a mask while taking to children but then she takes it out to cough and no more mask...no doctor is wearing a mask. They go home without a mask. She's coughing. She knows it's serious. She doesn't care her shift is up she's going home. She's going to die anyway why should she care ) she tells him about a virus "don't trust the tv" go and barricade yourself at "franks". MC believes his sister inmediately and in shock he steps out of the train leaving little girl behind...again, she's 8 and it's night. No problem she steps out and the 2 of them go back walking even tho they're still far away...I guess it was the last train of the night.

They arrive at the little girl house but she doesn't have a key, nobody is home so of course they'll go to frank together. They go to the supermarket...not a single soul went there only the npc1: cashier

Streets are empty.

They arrive at franks, there's a npc2: security guard there that they let them enter, later on you see him dead...sitting there. Like the mf sat there and just died.

Honestly it was horrible but for some reason I watched it to the end. It's like a person wanted a show about a little girl, an indian man walking alone in a post apocaliptic world and wrote whatever to get them together. Going to watch episode 2 tho.

There's something about an space station that I didn't quite get...station eleven.

4/10 might get better....probably not but we'll give it a chance.

I've seen episode 2 and the writing is still bad, dialogue is bad...and acting, no offense, is bad, editing is a mess. Was gonna write a episode 2 review but there's no too much to say...I won't be watching any further.

Barely worth 1 star, if you want your Intellect dumbing down watch this GARBAGE!.

[davidhiggins-89756 · 1/10 · 17 March 2022]

**Does Contain Spoilers**, **Does Contain Spoilers**, **Does Contain Spoilers**, **Does Contain Spoilers**, **Does Contain Spoilers**.

So where do you start with this utter GARBAGE. Right then, some actor starts dying on stage. Of cause there is no one in the production crew on hand we are supposed to believe with any medical training. Even though there is a DEFIBRILLATOR that gets called for by some medic types coming from the audience or somewhere, who FINALLY twigs that the guy is indeed having a heart attack and calls out for the device.

So they HAVE a Defibrillator but we are 'supposed to believe', (you'll be seeing a lot of these 'supposed to believe' moments throughout this show if you are daft enough to continue watching it). Yea supposed to believe that NO ONE has been TRAINED UP to actually USE his device.

Just have such a device eventually on hand, dug out with no trained person to operate it, that I bet they would have had to have someone at least with first aid experience all as part of the Theatre Insurance, maybe even Union requirements.

So anyway, we are supposed to believe that the Stage Manager & supervisors there would be more interested in getting some fake snow turned off than having 8 year old children STANDING AROUND watching some guy die. Not instead having them took away to the side, off of the stage.

Not very likely is it.

Then we have the bogus saga of the young girls wrangler/chaperone person who after eventually finding the girl to take her home but then vanishes, disappears into thin air, even though she has been given a KEY to the young girls Parents home. An almost total stranger given a key to what looks like an expensive house. Not very likely.

So abandoned with no way for the child to even get in to her home BECAUSE her parents just happen NOT to be at home. Her Parents can't be bothered to COLLECT the girl every night or send an UBER to pick her up, they do not even trust the girl to have a key of her own.

So they all go off on a train get to her Parents home, with the girl who we are led to believe did not know her Parents were not even going to be there. Her elusive Parents we are supposed to believe never told her.

So the guy & the girl can't get in, she just happening to be an 'only' child with no elder sibling at home. With neither the neglectful Wrangler or either of the girls parents can be contacted on the phone. All unavailable. We are supposed to believe all this.

Then we get the sheer nonsense of the guy getting 5 shopping carts FULL of food. And pushing it all in a train of shopping carts miles through the snow.

It'd be hard enough pushing one EMPTY shopping cart let alone one that was full of shopping through the snow. Let alone FIVE!! Shopping carts, somehow strapped up with some bungee straps up the sides.

Not very likely being able to push all that amount of weight and rolling resistance, not in the snow and up even the slightest of inclines. The weight of such a train of shopping carts needing as we could SEE a large BATTERY PACK. I suspect installed on the lower shelf of the second shopping cart at the front of its forward motion. Hidden inside a white cardboard box.

A battery pack & electric motors being rigged up to this utter nonsense of a situation, with the guy just flipping a switch or some off scene crew hand did and off it went at around 33mins in this garbage episode.

The guy initially was not even PUSHING this train of heavy shopping carts FULL of food, we can clearly see his elbows were bent, not straight. So unless he has Superman strength pec muscles it is an impossibility. The electric/battery motor had been activated before he had started his initial PUSH. The most strenuous moment, getting it initially moving.

WE see shortly after he can even push it all along one handed whilst on the phone and even when sticking his phone in his coat pocket it moves along effortlessly no handed. (possibly a slight incline downwards maybe, it looked levelish but in that snow it would take a bigger incline than that to keep it moving on its own).

Later on around 35mins 38secs at the apartment block lobby we see all the shopping carts even had bottles of water as well on the lower racks, 4 lots of them other than the cart with the disguised battery pack in the white box.

The weight of all that could not be pushed by him, not a chance. So TOTAL GARBAGE THEN. But you are all supposed to lower your intellect accept this and swallow it all down, the sheer garbage of it.

At 37mins 30secs onwards at the apartment front door, again we see this guy has super strength pushing the shopping cart one handed with his super strength even being bestowed upon the 8 year old girl as well!!!. She is seen pushing a shopping cart full of food & water, not straight armed to get leverage but with bent elbows all on likely to be the apartments carpet. AND around a corner in a circular motion.

Then just 'moments' after getting into the guys bro's apartment, not hours or days later but almost straight away within 5 mins, (the chances of that!), of all the places for a commercial aircraft to crash, it crashes right outside that apartment. 200 yards from it. Again the chances of that.

Just a load of improbable nonsense. Poorly written script.

Of cause even after this garbage nonsense of an episode I then decided to waste even more time viewing the next episode. Giving it a chance.

**Does Contain Spoilers** **Does Contain Spoilers** **Does Contain Spoilers**.

Episode 2 then, containing ***SPOILERS***.

We then find ourselves in this hippy dippy trippy World of HAPPY hippy communes with a roving acting troupe of acting performers visiting them all now and then.

They would likely have been wiped out. Many outside factions, Mexico, even South Americans heading north etc, for the booty. GANGS of thugs would have swept the USA, setting up warlord provinces, it would have all gone down the Mad Max type setting. Not some low polluting happy social utopia.

Not the 'nice' people living a carefree happy life as depicted in this 2nd episode but something far more sinister, fearful & threatening. Just how does this band of entertainers even SUSTAIN themselves?, producing what?.

We are supposed to believe they receive a shed load of supplies from hard working communities to feed them all for some garbage Shakespeare play performed. All clamouring to get them to perform for them we are shown.

They would have been either ENSLAVED and under the jurisdiction of some Kingpin type warlord guy & his thugs making all the local rules & demands or just bumped off. Shot dead.

We then get a pair of guys come along one of which the Speedo swimwear woman later cold heartedly STABS UP, leaving him for dead behind a log. Later to be seen slumped in a wheelchair, BLOOD coming from a wound in his side, either already dead or severely wounded and instead of the younger guy kicking up fuss about it to the troupe of performers, (the others seamed reasonable), instead just does 'nothing' about it. No justice pursued, just pushed the wounded or dead guy after looking at the waterfront for some reason??, wheeled him off back to his community. Not very likely is it.

Just sheer garbage. One of those series you are just supposed to accept any old garbage plot, any old garbage preposterous situation, time & time again all so the completely worthless POORLY written script can fit in, so it can actually work in folks dumbed down minds & proceed along. Yet it doesn't work does it.

Too many "as if's", just not a probable series of events, time & time again, unlikely individual events adding up to sheer garbage.

What an INSULT to the intelligence this series is. I refuse to watch any more of this utter tripe. All of the season swiftly ERASED off of my hard drive. A waste of time downloading it and a waste of time watching the first 2 episodes, giving it a chance. It just is not worth it.

DO not put yourself through watching this series, refuse to watch anything that insults your intelligence, having to dumb it down to be able to watch it.

I want material that does the opposite, something that IMPARTS something of value not what this is, as what that troupe of performers are... mainly Parasites. That is what this series is, a Parasite of the mind & intellect, something that takes away from what you already have.

It is OK to give up on watching a TV series, there is never a need to put yourselves through garbage. If after giving it a chance it does not come anywhere near being even satisfactory, best to leave it and forget about it.