I think the
biggest trouble I had with USA's cyberpunk thriller series "Mr. Robot"
is that I saw Channel 4's "Utopia" and FX's "Fargo" first. So all the
things that "Mr. Robot" does well - the shock value, the violence, the
over-the-top characters, and the interesting cinematography - I've
already seen done better.
Still, credit where
credit is due. The pilot is an extremely strong piece of television,
where we're introduced to Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek), a depressed,
paranoid, drug-using computer programmer, who works for a cybersecurity
firm and hacks people's personal information after hours with
frightening ease. Socially anxious and increasingly alienated, he has
few connections, aside from his childhood friend Angela (Portia
Doubleday), who got him his current job, his psychiatrist Dr. Gordon
(Gloria Reuben), and his neighbor and dug dealer, Shayla (Frankie
Shaw). One day, after shutting down a DDoS attack, he's approached by
Mr. Robot (Christian Slater), the leader of a hacker group called
fsociety. He's also targeted for recruitment by Tyrell Wellick (Martin
Wallström), an ambitious young executive at E Corp (which Elliot calls
Evil Corp.), his firm's biggest client.
There
are elements here that stand out as innovative and original. The
hacking that features in the show is reportedly technically accurate,
and the hacker subculture is much more true to life than Hollywood
usually manages. I love that the lead is played by Rami Malek, who
delivers a hell of a performance, and immediately stands out from the
crowd due to the fact that he's ethnically Egyptian. I like that the
villain is a psychopath who is terrible at being a psychopath. I like
the brooding electronica score and bleak visuals. The oppressive
framing is a lot of fun. I like the use of the unreliable narrator, and
how this allows the show to simply call the evil corporation at the
heart of the show Evil Corp. with a straight face. I like that "Mr.
Robot" manages to pull off a few genuine surprises.
I
just wish it were better as a whole, cohesive show. Frankly, the
writing is mediocre and the characterization of everyone aside from
Elliot is haphazard at best. A lot of the clever ideas are rendered
less effective by blunt handling. I had a hard time differentiating
Shayla and fsociety hacker Darlene (Carly Chaikin) for multiple
episodes. I'd ding Christian Slater for his bland portrayal of Mr.
Robot except that the creators give him nothing to work with beyond a
mystery that was too satisfied with itself. The cast is good and
smaller players like Michel Gill and Bruce Altman should get a lot of
credit for giving their characters some nuance. But then you have
Tyrell, who despite Martin Wallström's best efforts, is essentially a
Swedish Patrick Bateman rip-off, and seems to belong in a more
outlandish, hyperreal kind of program.
Pacing
is also a major problem. The middle episodes in particular drag badly,
as Elliot keeps getting sidetracked from his end goals by one crisis or
another. There's little sense of stakes and only occasional spurts of
momentum. In order for some of the big surprises to really have impact,
we have to be on a limited information diet. However, this means that
Elliot gets sidelined for huge chunks of the show, leaving us with
Angela or Tyrell as they pursue other agendas. Now both of these
storylines yield some good things eventually, but they really muck
around with the structure of the series, often losing the subjective
reality elements that made the pilot so compelling.
What
I think really bothered me about "Mr. Robot" is that it thinks that
it's smarter and edgier than it actually is. It's terribly
self-satisfied about doing such a good job with the hacking terms, to
the point where a minor character actually points this out. Sex and
violence are constantly used for shock value, often in fairly
distasteful ways. So many characters are shallow, vapid, and act in
ways that only disillusioned young internet nerds think people act. And
then there are the title screens, which are employed an awful lot like
the ones for the "Fargo" series, except that creator Sam Esmail's name
is brightly emblazoned on each one, like it's part of the title. In
short, "Mr. Robot" is exactly the kind of show you'd expect from someone
like Elliott Alderson, if he were a real person. And I don't trust
that the show's creators understand how to use that.
I'm
not unhappy that I finished the first season, but I think the second
will almost certainly be less effective, and I'm on the fence as to
whether to continue. Without the surprises of the last few episodes,
and with the novelty of the premise having worn off, how far can the
creators take this? Will they turn to more shocks and more
boundary-pushing or figure out how to actually build its characters?
The jury's still out, but I'm not hopeful for "Mr. Robot's" future.
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