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OA on Netflix

4K views 68 replies 29 participants last post by  daryl zero 
#1 ·
New series starting this Friday (12/16/16) on Netflix called OA.


 
#3 ·
Surprise: Netflix announces thriller ‘The OA,’ premiering Friday
By Patrick Ryan, USA Today - Dec. 13, 2016

Your holiday binge-watch schedule just got a little more crowded.

In an unusual strategy, Netflix has announced a new series, The OA, just four days before its Friday premiere. The eight-episode mystery thriller was co-created by Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij, whose previous collaborations explored a modern-day cult (Sound of My Voice) and an underground anarchist group (The East).

The OA appears to mine similarly psychological terrain. Directed by Batmanglij, the show follows a missing blind woman, Prairie Johnson (Marling), who mysteriously returns home after seven years with her sight restored. Refusing to talk to the FBI or her parents, she instead shares her story with a group of teenagers and a high-school algebra teacher, all of whom she recruits for a larger mission.

Phyllis Smith (The Office), Emory Cohen (Brooklyn), Scott Wilson (The Walking Dead) and Jason Isaacs (Harry Potter) co-star in the Netflix original. Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner and Sarah Esberg of Plan B Entertainment are executive producers, along with Marling, Batmanglij and Anonymous Content’s Michael Sugar (True Detective).

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http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/t...glij/95300644/
 
#5 ·
Forgot this thread was here.

The first episode is rather slow but it starts moving along nicely through the next 3, especially episode 3/4. I'm enjoying it and I'm hoping I can finish the last 3 tonight. This show is very binge-inducing, even more so than many other long-form TV shows.
 
#7 ·
I concur. I was just about to give up on the show until Episode 5. But then it ended and I have more questions than answers...
 
#10 ·
So some questions on the ending. I will put it in spoiler tags for those that haven't finished it yet.


So they find the books. Do you think that means she was actually making everything up and their abilities are not real? How do you guys take the ending? Was it all real or all made up?


If their abilities are real, why didn't they just heal her when she got shot?


Why was the FBI guy suddenly in her house, at night, when the house was locked up and no one was home?
 
#11 ·
There are a lot of questions and I think that was part of how this show was created, it was left to the audience to interpret what really happened, this is a hallmark of a lot of Marling and Batmanglij's work, to say there's a lot of ambiguity would be an understatement.

I really enjoyed it, I'm not that concerned as to what really happened as the presentation was excellent. The delivering of a story within a story and how it was told along with the individual character development was what I really liked about the series, at the end, I felt as if I really knew these characters much better than I did in the beginning, getting hard answers was secondary.

Just one thought, among many, is why was the FBI guy in the house when the family was away? Was he putting those books under her bed?
 
#14 ·
Some of this may be repeated but I thought I would put it all one place:


The only things we know that are verified by anyone other than OA/Prairie:
  1. She was blind and then she wasn't - Some people have hysterical blindness. She could have been blind due to early childhood PTSD and then it went away
  2. She was in a video on the subway
  3. The FBI in the house was strangely in the house asking why they were there vs why he was there

Everything else may or may not be true:
  1. Her childhood
  2. Her capture
  3. Her healing stories
  4. Her five captured friends
The OA - was revealed to be short for "Away" but it could really be "A Way" as in "A way to Cope"

As of right now I believe the whole story is one of invention to possibly cope with some PTSD or she could in fact be Sybil with multiple personalities.

Even at the end nothing was shown to be magical. They just got up and danced at the shooter and he probably went WTF long enough for him to be tackled. We did not see her being cured.
Now if they did a second season they either have to go X-files with lots of conspiracies or Sybil with nutso.
 
#18 ·
Regarding the definition:

You could say its both. This article references her initial thought for the OA and then the subsequent thought:
https://www.bustle.com/articles/200...r-prairies-new-name-has-a-significant-meaning

My wife and I had the Original Angel as our first guess but when she first talks about she reference Away as her first guess.

Of course remember everything is through her story telling so far. All the OTHER people are hearsay so to speak.
 
#19 · (Edited)
Wow, the online reviews are really polarized for this show! They either really like it or hate it. I don't understand the hate honestly from some of the reviews. Yes, the ending felt out of place (and even silly some might say). Also, they could have developed some of the characters a bit better certainly (like showing the motivations for her 5 following her, for example).

Even so, I thought the "is it true or isn't it" part of the show was really fascinating, and most of the flashback scenes were tension filled. Watching the season, I felt it was something a bit different than just about anything I have seen, and it was thought provoking at times.

I definitely enjoyed the season for sure.
 
#20 ·
These Netflix originals seem to be 2-3 eps to long. They would be better served to reduce number of eps with less filler content. They should also keep them to one season for the same reason.

Stranger things lost me around eps 4-5 and The OA stalled around eps 4 but I pressed on and finished it.

When I look for something to watch on Netflix or Amazon Prime the length of the series is always a factor.
 
#21 ·
I don't feel this way at all. 8 is the bare minimum I would usually want, and I often want more. Any other Network TV series has bad episodes throughout. If a particular episode is accomplishing nothing, then of course I would agree it isn't needed. But Netflix series are among the best series I watch nowadays, and I want more, not less :)
 
#22 · (Edited)
Some Thoughts ... :

* The end dance, in the cafeteria, after the "5th movement" accomplished getting her shot, which can be interpreted as the desired outcome, to allow her to "journey on .."
* I had not thought of why the FBI guy was in the house, & I believe he was actually just a "therapist" , not an agent, so that makes him being in the empty home even more odd..
* The final scene where she seems to be in sort of a white room and says , "Homer?" .. was that in a hospital after she was stabilized, was it the original hospital room from ep. 1, ...was it another universe?
* The fact that she did seem to have dreams of the cafeteria & knew to go there puts that aspect of her in the "true" column..
Generally, I prefer straight science fiction over "spiritual" type stuff, but overall I enjoyed this it seem to have been done well.
Anyone know if they plan a season 2?
 
#24 · (Edited)
#25 ·
Yeah count me among those who were rather disappointed, not just with the end but questionable plot elements, and..............those stupid movements :rolleyes: seriously WTF were they thinking. I probably won't bother with the second season if that ever makes it. YMMV.
 
#27 · (Edited)
Interesting. My teenage son and I watched Donnie Darko right before Xmas. I just finished The OA, and never once thought it was like Donnie Darko.

I can see why it's not for everyone, but I'm with Keenan. I quite enjoyed it. While I would not call this magical realism, I can't help but feel the shows creators were perhaps influenced by it. I'm OK if things were left unanswered because for me, the series was an exploration of human psyche through a fantastical notion of spirituality and the telling of a tale that comes from someone who should have always been seen as an unreliable narrator. Trauma victims often are (though no fault of their own).
 
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#28 ·
I finally got around to watching this. First four episodes had me intrigued, but after that it was downhill for me. I thought the ending was absurd and unsatisfying.

I didn't see any comments on the quality of the streaming experience. This show is 4K HDR, but was one of the darkest, dreariest, and washed-out streaming videos I have ever seen. For me, it detracted from the enjoyment. Other UHD/HDR shows on Netflix and Amazon have been better. I wonder if it was done this way on purpose? I was disappointed.

Overall, I gave the show two stars.
 
#29 ·
Impossible Dream
Brit Marling’s ethereal series The OA is the year’s first sleeper hit. Which is funny, given that a few years ago, it likely never would have gotten made.
By Katrina Onstad, Vulture.com - Jan. 23, 2016

One summer, when Brit Marling was a kid at camp in Wisconsin, she told ghost stories late at night to the girls in her cabin. At first, everybody loved this. But after a few nights, something changed. “I think things were just percolating in everybody’s imaginations,” says Marling. The camp called her parents and said they had to pick her up; her ghost stories were freaking people out. Clearly the form of her stories (bunk-bed broadcast) didn’t match up with the content (Marling’s uncanny conjurings).

Until recently, a variation of this problem marked Marling’s career. As a screenwriter and actor, she’s created several widely praised but little-seen indie films, such as 2011’s Another Earth and 2013’s The East. Then, with almost zero fanfare just before Christmas, Netflix released The OA, an eight-part series starring Marling that she co-wrote with director and creative partner Zal Batmanglij. This zigzagging tale of a traumatized survivor of a near-death experience and a mysterious abduction quickly became the latest riddle-me-this series to cause an online frenzy. An unreliable narrator and episodes of varying length add up to something that’s not quite episodic TV and not quite film; Marling equates it to a novel, considering it a new form for a new kind of TV. “The OA couldn’t have existed three years ago,” she says.

Read the full story at: http://www.vulture.com/2017/01/brit-marling-the-oa.html
 
#30 ·
I loved this show - it was different... unconventional, the type of content we need more of, so I applaud Netflix for picking this up. It took me a few episodes to get into it, as I really disliked the Steve Winchell - his character was such a generic "angry, confused teenager lashing out at the world" role that a million other shows have done. Once I got over that hump, I enjoyed pretty much every other aspect of the story including the ending (I like how it anchors mysticism with an element of reality).

I also understand why this show was released with very little fanfare - you can't really predict what the audience reaction will be, and I understand why some people don't like it.
 
#34 ·
I enjoyed the story, even as a non-religious, but hated the one-man-show-esque dance moves. To me it was comically bad when they danced. The worst of all things media/entertainment/art is interpretive dance. That's all I could think. Luckily it is very short on screen time in total.
 
#35 ·
During the show, when they would do the dance routine I found it odd/slightly humorous. However, in the last episode when they are in the cafeteria hiding and they all leap up at once and start doing it to the killer and that music flares to life, I have to admit, I had goose bumps all over.
 
#36 ·
We finished it over the weekend. The dance moves taking you to some alternate dimension is beyond stupid and the person she visits when she dies is absurd. However, I thought the show was pretty interesting and left you wondering what the heck it was all about. I'm personally not a fan of that. I don't want it all open-ended with no questions answered. I don't find that clever.
 
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