I stumbled upon "From" on one of those YouTube channels that gives a synopsis of a whole TV series or movie in a fraction of the time. I started watching this one and decided I liked the sound of it, then when I saw it had reviewed really well I stop watching the YT video and went to watch the show myself. We're about half way through the show now and really enjoying it.

The premise in a nutshell is that there's this town and when people find themselves there they can't leave (because magic) and there's these creepy monsters that come out at night and try to kill everyone. People are fine as long as they stay in the houses but if they let them in it's game over. The monsters can make themselves look like people and they constantly try to trick people into letting them in. At the very beginning of the show a monster convinces a little girl to open the window by appearing to be her grandmother.

The show is very much like Lost only without the astronomical budget and it's got much more of a horror vibe going on. I'd heard absolutely nothing about this show and I don't know anyone else who's heard of it either. It must be doing quite well as they're working on season 4 right now. I feel like there must be some demographic somewhere where everyone's heard of this show, but it's not round here.

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[–] Ilandar@lemmy.today 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

That's a fairly long-winded analogy but I understand what you mean. Mystery box seems to be a really divisive genre/style in television, and I'm definitely more in your camp where I really start to lose interest in a show once I feel it's going down that route. I think a lot of people love the online communities and detailed discussions that these shows generate, because fan theories are never really disproven until the final episode or two of a show. However, I think that's also part of the reason why the endings tend to be so divisive - a lot of people get caught up in their own fan-canon idea of what the show is about and are very disappointed when they get a reality check from the people actually making it.

[–] Sunsofold@lemmings.world 2 points 9 hours ago

The length is part of the analogy. The whole genre is a waste of time. A 'mystery box' is to mystery as a shaggy dog story is to a joke, but at least there's some absurdist humour in a shaggy dog story when you realize it's an anti-joke. The mystery box is just pretending to have put in effort. It's human made but with the same level of 'intelligence' as AI slop.

These shows are insulting to the audience at the end because the whole production is just the producers saying 'it doesn't matter if it makes sense. These idiots will eat the slop and love it anyway.' The people who say 'I don't care. I liked it anyway,' are the exact idiots the producers are mocking, but too stupid to know they're being mocked.