Having finished Netflix's "The One", we decided to try Amazon Prime's "Soulmates" hoping that this would take a similar conceit into a place I was more interested in. To be fair to it, it does - and explores the worlds reaction to soul matching technology, rather than just becoming another police procedural.
Soulmates contains six anthology style stories, that take place in an approximate near future. Technology has been developed that allowed people to be matched with their soul mate. The episodes explore what happens when people already in relationships take the test, the lengths people will go to meet their mate, what happens to people whose perfect partners have died before they've met and even worse, people who prospective partners have a dark secret.
Performances are pretty solid across the run, with each episode having at least one recognisable face. It's often quite a transatlantic series. British faces, like Dolly Wells, Darren Boyd, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett and Charlie Heaton mix with David Costabile, Bill Skarsgard, Malin Akerman and Betsy Brandt.
I do like the fact that the stories explore the various facets of a life effected by this new technology, but as with most anthology style shows, your enjoyment of the particular stories may vary wildly. Particularly as a couple of episodes of this are relationship dramas, whereas the other four explore much more extreme ideas. Probably the most memorable is the layover episode, which sees Bill Skarsgard have a one-night stand in Mexico and then go to great lengths to retrieve his stolen passport so he can continue on to meet his soulmate. This story escalates to frankly ridiculous extremes, but it's fun to see him and Stewart-Jarrett take the journey.
If I'm honest, I'm not sure any of these episodes are truly good enough to elevate the show from a distraction to something I'd actively recommend, but I got enough out of them that I think I'd have come back for the second season.
Soulmates contains six anthology style stories, that take place in an approximate near future. Technology has been developed that allowed people to be matched with their soul mate. The episodes explore what happens when people already in relationships take the test, the lengths people will go to meet their mate, what happens to people whose perfect partners have died before they've met and even worse, people who prospective partners have a dark secret.
Performances are pretty solid across the run, with each episode having at least one recognisable face. It's often quite a transatlantic series. British faces, like Dolly Wells, Darren Boyd, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett and Charlie Heaton mix with David Costabile, Bill Skarsgard, Malin Akerman and Betsy Brandt.
I do like the fact that the stories explore the various facets of a life effected by this new technology, but as with most anthology style shows, your enjoyment of the particular stories may vary wildly. Particularly as a couple of episodes of this are relationship dramas, whereas the other four explore much more extreme ideas. Probably the most memorable is the layover episode, which sees Bill Skarsgard have a one-night stand in Mexico and then go to great lengths to retrieve his stolen passport so he can continue on to meet his soulmate. This story escalates to frankly ridiculous extremes, but it's fun to see him and Stewart-Jarrett take the journey.
If I'm honest, I'm not sure any of these episodes are truly good enough to elevate the show from a distraction to something I'd actively recommend, but I got enough out of them that I think I'd have come back for the second season.