I Watch TV: Curfew
One of the taglines used to promote this TV series was “Like nothing else on TV”, which is an intriguing thing to say when Blood Drive was on our screens just last year. There’s probably something that could be done to compare the two shows, both post-apocalyptic road races that’s sometimes about family and unexpected allies and the nature of the catastrophe more than the race, and both with the thesis that when order breaks down the world ceases to make sense so the correct response is to be absurdist. To write that though, would require someone who actually watched all of Blood Drive* and that ain't me.
So Curfew on its own terms. There’s been a zombie apocalypse, and the zombies hate light, so a totalitarian government imposes a curfew. But there’s an escape, an island paradise set up by a farsighted billionaire, Max Larssen. You can go there. If you win the race.
(The zombies are called infected or mooks because despite appearances the show is not especially interested in the zombies, or the virus, or attempts to make a cure, except as they effect the characters lives and relationships. This is much the same with the problem, or situation of each episode. It is designed more to illuminate the characters’ past and how it relates to the present than being about the difficulty or danger of the moment.)
Anyway, people are trying to maintain norms and families and even just survive in a world gone crazy and to do so they join an illegal street race to win the prize of escaping to a paradise island that may not even exist. It’s a lot of fun, the makeshift alliances become something more, and in the end we get answers, we get answers as to why they’re racing (in a variety of mis-matched vehicles) and how this world came about and why everyone is so screwed up (mostly the zombies). We even get an answer as to why the race from Larssen himself and as I expected its because he’s a big knob. I mean, really.
Watch This: Because cool and good storytelling, combined with absurd apocalyptic races, is something to be celebrated.
Don’t Watch This: If you don’t care about zombies, racing, love triangles, families, bad babysitting or you hate it when cool characters get killed.
* I really wanted to like Blood Drive. But it turned out I didn’t care enough about the characters and the absurd post-apocalypse was interested in being gonzo about the weirdo idea of the week rather than digging in on, say, the horror of cars that run on human blood.
Comments