“Steven has an argument with his neighbor, Susan offers him some cryptic yet prophetic advice. Then Steven and Michelle begin their search for the little boy.”

“Apathy Is The Enemy” is the opening episode to the “After Judgement” series. It’s a story which is told in a creatively non-linear fashion — particularly when you take into account the parallel “prequel” series of “Before Judgment” and the upcoming “Prevent The End” website. As far as the episode itself is concerned, it certainly does enough to introduce some main characters and what appears to be the overall “quest” the characters will undertake. But the opening installment is only marginally effective in establishing the world — and the context of that world — for the audience. Instead, it relies on viewers taking the time to explore the official website to view the teaser and full trailers, as well as the prequel site to get a bigger picture of what exactly is going on.

In this episode:

• Steven rushes into a room and says, “We gotta go … when was the last time you saw a little kid.”
• There is a vision of Steven holding and playing with a little boy “100 days and 37 hours” earlier
• Steven rushes out of his house — in the nude
• Michelle seems a bit perplexed by Steven’s behavior
• Steven’s neighbor doesn’t appreciate the outburst
• Susan appears suddenly to say “The eyes never change. They are the same size the day we day die as the day we were born. You made an incorrect choice. She’s not the one.”
• She also says, “Apathy is now the enemy, Steve.”
• Steve replies, “What the hell is wrong with everyone today.”
• Steve and Michelle head off to look for the boy, despite Michelle’s misgivings
• They meet a rather sedentary man who says, “We don’t know any children.”

Whether or not this approach is successful will depend entirely upon the willingness of the viewer to go above and beyond simply watching an episode. It’s a risk. Most viewers, at least for the moment, have been “programmed” by television to receive everything they need to know about a show from the episode. And on that criteria alone, viewers might find this introduction to be too vague and too obscure to be worth their time. On the other hand, viewers who are more savvy when it comes to webseries will likely realize and accept that there’s much more to the story than is presented in the opening episode and go looking elsewhere for more answers. Those folks will be rewarded by visiting the “Before Judgment” site with information on the post-apocalyptic world in which the primary story takes place.

But more confusing still is the fact that the events of this episode happen in a non-linear fashion — in fact, it will take another seven episodes for the series to “catch up” to the events in its premiere episode.

On a personal note, I thoroughly appreciate the notion of experimentation, but I’m not sure how well this approach works. Considering that a webseries is being presented in a medium (the internet) which is defined by short attention spans, it seems particularly risky to not do everything you can to grab your viewer’s attention in the opening episode. In comparing this to, say, the opening salvo from Afterworld, there’s no comparison as to which story is more immediately compelling and engaging. Certainly After Judgment has a long-term plan (that much is absolutely clear), but the vague introduction might be enough to lose casual viewers before the series has a chance to really make its mark with their viewing preferences.

As far as the episode itself is concerned, there isn’t a whole lot beneath the surface (until viewers geta few episodes into the series, that is) except for the line that “apathy is the enemy.” It seems that in a world where death cannot happen easily that the status quo might be a similar kind of death, at least for the spirit of the soul. In that sense, doing nothing is not all that different from dying. And it will be interesting to see, as the series progresses, how its characters choose life – or choose death …

Topics: Sci-Fi, Web Reviews
Filed under: After / Before Judgment

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