Marcella is an ITV crime drama with a titular cop whose dark personal life gives her a unique insight into her investigations, just like every other titular cop in every other ITV crime drama since the beginning of the universe. Yet viewers expecting a cosy cop show were left unnerved by the final episode of the second series, which aired earlier this month, in which Marcella visits a hypnotherapist to reveal she killed her own daughter and takes a blade to her own face to give herself a Chelsea smile. Unrecognisable, she begins a life living on the streets. Before the hour is up, though, DNA evidence has been used to mark her legally dead so that she can return to the force as an undercover agent.
If you find that all a bit far-fetched (like one viewer who tweeted “can someone please explain that whole ending to me? None of the characters’ backstories were tied up and instead she’s now the joker?! Eh!!?”) , you’re probably not ready for the direction telly is heading in. In the last few years, the most hyped TV shows, such as Twin Peaks, have dispensed with linear storytelling, instead creating meta-worlds where normal characters deal with strange occurrences and jumbled timelines. It’s almost as if these shows deliberately try to disorientate audiences.
Westworld, the HBO hit nominated for 22 Emmys and returning for a second season this week, confused viewers by creating a series of robots whose lives exist on a loop, meaning storylines taking place over decades could appear sequentially, tricking the viewer. The ability to swap bodies in the Marvel series Legion, meanwhile, means you never know whether the characters you’re watching are really themselves. In this new generation of shows, seemingly normal people are constantly interrogating the realities they find themselves in, unsure whether they are experiencing magic or just the side-effects of trauma, psychosis or AI.
This is all happening at a time when our ability to judge what is true or fake in the real world is becoming ever more difficult. “In this particular moment with Brexit and Trump a lot of our notions of reality really are being disrupted,” says Dr Helen Marshall, who teaches a masters in science fiction and fantasy at Anglia Ruskin University. “Television shows like Black Mirror, which are projecting into the future but not very far – the kinds of world they’re throwing up seem increasingly plausible. TV can be both escapist but can also be a way of thinking about what reality is and how reality gets constructed. I think we’re really into those questions right now.”
So while there are lots of reasons we’re getting more shows this odd, there remains a question as to whether weirder is better. Some viewers resent the fact that most of these shows demand viewers spend time reading online episode recaps and fan theories just to understand what’s going on. When the first season of Westworld ended, for example, there was a notable backlash from critics who thought that, in all its twists and trickery, the show had failed to tell us anything about humanity and consciousness. One particularly scathing review, entitled Westworld Is Bullshit, challenged the whole notion that complexity equals ingenuity.
“I know that a lot of people genuinely enjoy the kind of show that pretty much demands viewers go online after an episode to figure out what the hell is going on,” says its author, Village Voice TV critic Lara Zarum. “I feel like the success of the first season of True Detective and the cottage industry of explainer pieces that sprang up around it has something to do with the proliferation of these kinds of shows. I also think TV creators are feeling more pressure to stand out in a crowded field, and a plot-heavy show, if it’s successful, kind of guarantees coverage in entertainment blogs. If you need to do extra homework after watching a show, it hasn’t done its job. I found Westworld more interesting to think about than enjoyable to watch.”
That has always been the issue of complex TV. If things are too straightforward, savvy audiences will guess the ending before it happens. If they’re too complicated then watching starts to feel like a second job, especially when shows prioritise plot twists and conceptualism over likable characters and good scripts. But perhaps it’s outdated to think that TV should be entertaining. The concept of the serious novel or experimental cinema is accepted. Maybe it’s time we acknowledged there are some shows you watch for simple escapism, and others you have to work for.
Transmission failure: your guide to TV’s most complicated shows
American Gods
What’s it based on?
There are no six words in the English language that send a chill down my spine more than “Adapted from a Neil Gaiman novel”. I know his tribe of fans (long-haired 6 Music listeners who moved to a small town in their 30s – “It’s quiet but there’s a fantastic selection of ales”) are devout, but there is something about his brand of thinking man’s fantasy that makes me want to burn down the nearest Forbidden Planet.
Is it watchable?
Only if you’re the sort of person who would enjoy being trapped at a party with someone trying to tell you why The Matrix got them into philosophy. The worst thing about this show is just how clever it thinks it is, leading to lots of overblown soliloquies. In the opening episode, for example, “technical boy”, the god of technology, rants that “language is a virus, religion is an operating system, prayers are spam”. With scripts like this – temporal shifts, shape-shifting gods, sex scenes where a goddess shags people until they are sucked entirely inside her – you can see his point about language.
Westworld
What’s it based on?
The 1973 science-fiction film Westworld about a futuristic western-themed theme park where humans can have sex with and murder incredibly lifelike robots. Also Jurassic Park a bit. And also Boston Dynamics.
Is it watchable?
Westworld sets the scene for lots of big questions about the nature of consciousness and artificial intelligence, and although they do eventually get answered, there are hours and hours of cowboy nonsense to get through in between. The fact that some of the characters are human-like droids doesn’t make endless shoot ’em-ups and rape scenes any more watchable. Still, the trailer for season two suggests a more fast-paced affair, with the “hosts” rising up to conquer humanity. Perhaps as the robots begin to learn more about the basics of human emotion, some of the show’s writers will as well.
Like a Facebook algorithm or John Humphries, Westworld is obviously very clever yet fundamentally unlikable.
Legion
What’s it based on?
X-Men, though thankfully you don’t need to know anything about the Marvel universe to enjoy this show. The main character, David, is the product of an affair Charles Xavier had with a former catatonic Holocaust survivor who was his patient on a visit to Israel. Sounds like a fun trip.
Is it watchable?
The central premise of Legion – “what if the voices in your head were real” – initially seems as if it’s going to be a more problematic reboot of Mel Gibson’s What Women Want, but the show that emerges is actually rather beautiful. David’s telekinetic powers creating some stunning kitchen explosions, plus Jemaine Clement from Flight of the Conchords plays Oliver, a jazz-loving beat poet who lives in a block of ice that looks as if it was interior-designed by Austin Powers. The show provides an impressionistic visual realisation of the processes of therapy and treatment that is far more engaging than most po-faced approaches to these topics. Still, there’s literally no way to watch Legion without five tabs open to different online explainers.
The OA
What’s it based on?
An original concept by Brit Marling and her long-term creative partner Zal Batmanglij. They spent two years writing the story, mostly retelling the entire series orally to one another and refining details as they went. Once the show was commissioned Marling did a Frank Underwood and cast herself in the title role.
Is it watchable?
It must be said that all these shows, despite their supposed weirdness, are very fond of the same tropes. Sliding violin frets, gratuitous sex and violence, characters having dreams or visions that always, always end with them waking up with a nosebleed. The OA has every one of those tropes and more, yet it feels more muted than some other weird fiction shows. There is an insularity to it, filmed shakily, in small houses, on grubby carpets. The show feels like a genuinely arthouse take on the space between life and death, and the most likely heir to Twin Peaks’s weird, wonderful crown. Interpretive dance has never been so crucial to a plot.