My, my, my but we have become a dark and despondent lot haven’t we?
Besieged by terror acts unspeakable, climate change, economic woes and a general decline in societal civility, humanity seems to have decided as one that the only way to deal with all this pessimism and darkness is to play out any and all worst case scenarios in books, movies and TV.
And one of the big daddies of all worst case scenarios is the end of the world, which we have seen brought to cataclysmic reality in shows like The Walking Dead, The Last Ship, Falling Skies, Defiance, Revolution, The Strain and the just-premiered 12 Monkeys among many, MANY others.
One of the more intriguing of these variants of this genre are the shows that deal with the Rapture, that Biblical idea that God will transport the good and the virtuous (who falls into that camp is a matter of great conjecture depending on where you stand) before plunging the world into a nightmarish fiesta of Satanic brutishness; specifically shows that either deal with its aftermath such as The Leftovers (thought it never references the “R” word explicitly) or its possible averting such as Sleepy Hollow.
Joining this sub-genre’s ranks now is The Messengers which looks at what happens when five unconnected people – a preacher, a scientist, a mother, a high school student and a fugitive, caught up in a blast move from a mysterious object that falls to earth, finds themselves linked in ways they can’t explain to each other and to a mysterious stranger of nefarious intent who, as is the way of these things, arrives naked on the planet, determined to wreak havoc.
The five hitherto strangers find out that they have been selected to stop the apocalypse, a mission that will have profound effects for not just their lives and those they love but humanity as a whole.
Quite whether they’ll succeed is another matter entirely – in the old days when happy endings were largely in vogue you would have unreservedly said yes; but now? Not so much – but you can be guaranteed there will be fire and brimstone, Fuastian deals aplenty and another long look into the dark night of humanity’s soul.
We really aren’t a bunch of campers any more are we?
The Messengers premieres on CW on 10 April 2015.