Wilderness (2023)
5/10
Would have been better as a 3-parter
16 September 2023
So much time wasted filling out the six episodes. Why? How much time can you waste watching a car drive down a highway? Or waiting, interminably, while characters pause, hem, haw, stumble through their lines? Endless pauses on faces, waiting for them to speak, sputter... or do something/anything!

I enjoyed it enough to watch all 6 episodes, but I lost track of how many times I sighed impatiently: "Would you just get on with it!" So much time wasted on unnecessary filler. If you don't have enough real guts of a story to fill 6 episodes, cut the number of episodes.

Some beautiful scenery, including the Banff Springs Hotel in Alberta and apparently scenes shot in Vancouver, BC. But there's only so much scenery I can enjoy while waiting for something to happen. Stuff DOES happen, and also two or three really preposterous scenes that jarred me out of the story while I thought how ridiculous/stupid/implausible the goings on were. Really knocked off a couple of points for those.

Jenna Coleman and Oliver Jackson-Cohen played their parts well, especially Jenna who got more of a range with her character, while Oliver spends a whole lot of his time on screen snivelling.

I am not a fan of Claire Rushbrook who usually plays meek underdog types with no backbone, but this was a different kind of role for her - a horror of a mother. Although I suppose a lot of mothers, lacking self-awareness, do dreadful wrong in their efforts to be a "good mother".

I can't really recommend you spend 6 hours watching Wilderness, which means six hours with some rather sordid, self-serving, narcissistic, and pathetic people. But, hey, some viewers like that sort of thing!
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