Season 1 |
Episode Guide
Presidio
No Country For Old Vamps
The Horror Out of Time
Soirees of Future Past
Truth and Consequences
Open Your Eyes
Nadir
Alice
Bonds of Blood
The October Faction
October Faction is the perfect example of a good idea executed poorly. From contrived, stifled acting through to some clunky dialogue early on, October Faction leaves a poor first impression that takes a while to recover from. If you can get past the first few episodes and persevere however, the show does open up a bit with some intriguing ideas through this first season, with lots of twists and turns along the way to make for a pretty engaging story.
Based on the comic book of the same name, October Faction’s premise sees a dysfunctional family return to their home-town for a wake where they set out trying to sell Fred’s late Father’s house. Only, it turns out the family hold a dark secret and they’re actually ex-monster hunters. The first episode introduces the family set-up and each of the quartet of players, with a light overarching narrative used to tie everything together. Parents Fred and Viv front the monster hunting duties while brother and sister Viv and Geoff make up the perfect-family archetype and soon learn they have powers of their own. However, things aren’t as clear cut as they first appear, with sprinklings of mistrust, big secrets and hellish monsters waiting around every corner.
After a rocky opening episode that spends the first 35 minutes or so introducing the characters and their life, the show picks up on that CW/Supernatural vibe and spins it into a cheesy guilty pleasure that certainly improves during some of its later episodes. If you can stick it out past the early season woes and get to the good stuff, this show certainly rewards you for that but whether you’ll get that far or not remains to be seen.
Episode 5 sees a change in fortune for the family too, and it’s here that the antagonistic threat of the season begins to take shape, as the truth finally starts to be revealed about the secrets in the family and more flashbacks come into play, fleshing out the show further. These are welcome segments too, and work well to add context and depth to some of the characters we’ve been following throughout the show.
While the story does improve, the same can’t be said for the acting or script work. Conversations feel pretty clunky throughout and Fred in particular is a really bad culprit for some of the wooden acting plaguing this series, with little emotional resonance to a lot of his lines delivered through the season. On rare occasions this works well as dead-pan comedy relief, but other times it offsets the tone of the show completely.
That aforementioned tone is strictly campy Supernatural territory and if you’re in the mood for something that taps into that same stream, cheesy dialogue and all, October Faction may just be your latest fantasy fix. However, this enthusiasm also highlights some of the issues with the series too, as the cast choices are questionable, failing to ignite the same levels of charisma one may expect from a show about a family unit consumed by secrets.
Overall though October Faction is a series you really have to persevere with to get to the good stuff. There’s a lot of cheesy lines and the opening episode is particularly rough compared to some of the later segments that build up a much more consistent pacing and feel. It’s still not perfect though, and there’s some big flaws here with the scripts and acting that are hard to ignore. The cliffhanger ending and plenty of scope for a second season may be enough to iron out the kinks if this one’s renewed but for now, October Faction feels more miss than hit, doing enough to rise above feeling like a disappointment but not quite enough to shake off its poor first impression.
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Verdict - 5.5/10
5.5/10
I wonder if Michelle Obama and Susan Rice commissioned this crap?
Is it as bad as they make it sound? no, err maybe.
But I love it. It is like a BBS Sci-fi, from the 90’s… OK not for everyone but give it a watch and hang in there. Some of the complaintes I have read is why I enjoy it and want to see more.
They use a fare share of cgi along with masks and props that look chunkey, I feel it must be for the effect they want. It’s good. I like to see this over 100% cgi that makes it impossible. Think graphic novel come to life, well this is what you get.
Lazy eye. Lotta the actors/actresses in this show got a lazy eye. Strange. Distracts me a lot. Wonder if that’s on purpose?
Dear God, it got exponentially worse over the last several episodes, descending into pure garbage. It was as if the director and producer had jumped ship and their kids were given a free run in the editing room.
This show seems like it was written by someone with a really good idea (which is presumably the comic books, I haven’t read them) and then produced by someone who allowed some 12 year olds to have the final say on what scenes would look like, what special effects are used, and the script itself. Even then, I feel like I’m horribly underestimating twelve year olds.
It has a good premise, but it’s so dreadfully flat to watch.
This show had a good person
As a fan of the comic the 1st episode was so horrible… it killed it for me. Pass this garbage.
Extreme yawn fest it promises to pick up but then leads to nothing. As a fan of the graphic novels this is an utter disaster the casting is way off the time lines are confused.
Fred looks just a few yrs younger than his Father & Mother!!! They couldn’t cast someone younger, with some sex appeal, or with some strength ? It’s so distracting
Absolutely abysmal show. It specifically panders to a very small audience with scripted over-the-top homosexuality and overt racism that does nothing for the story itself. The dialogue is too contrived and even more poorly delivered. I wanted to like it but each successful episode seems to be more pandering and less plot. Even in the later episodes, the story is derailed by unsubtle scenes. Skip it. There are plenty of much better developed web series.
Would be OK if it weren’t for all the completely trite and unnecessary relationship (of all stripes) BS pushing it into the “sucks” zone. Nobody cares – bring on the monsters! And explain things a bit better all the way through. I agree about all the “kids” looking like they’ve been held back for 10-15 years, too. Just lazy and stupid.
Why do all of the teenagers look like they are 30?!?!?
Does anyone think that the main male character looks a lot like droopy the dog and seems just about as rugged. Why not cast one of the brothers from super natural? This guy doesn’t look like he could handle a gun with much larger that a .22 caliber.
I like the vintage Charger. Most of the rest not so much. At least through Episode 3 which is as far as I’ve gotten.
The high school age kids might pass for college seniors. Their entire awkward adjustment to a new school subplot through Episode 3 is embarrassingly cliche and lame.
The monster makeup is bad. The conflicts with monsters are mostly bad comic moments.
As others have mentioned dialogue is uneven. Often stilted and unnatural.
I’ll persevere to the end but I can’t recommend this weak, easily forgotten scripting. No real tension or horror this far.
Casting and timeline does not make sense at all. Looks as if they couldn’t afford good casting or makeup. Some examples:
-Fred’s mother looks the same when he was a teenager as when he’s 30 years older. They couldn’t add wrinkles and/or gray hair in the present day?
-There a flashback scene in episode 5 where they are in Paris in October of 2005. The kids are clearly about 11 or 12 years old in the flashback. If they are supposed to be seniors in high school present day, they should have been about 3 years old in the flashback.
-The kids get ticked off when they find out their parents fight monsters as if not telling them was the worst thing they could have done. Really?
-The gay stuff was gratuitous. I guess it’s the producers way of telling us how woke they are.
I’m about halfway through the 5th episode and I don’t think I’ll be watching anymore. The concept had great potential.
As other commenters already stated there are gratuitous weed and gayness as major roadblocks. And yes, the dialogue is abysmal at times. Still, I want to watch this. Hopefully I’ll persevere. Thx for the outlook to later episodes.
Second scene fulfills a redneck stereotype that hasn’t really happened since the 80’s. The entire first episode was as boring as a daytime soap opera, with half the drama. The pot scene in the car screamed “please think this show is relevant!” while not being relevant, at all.. I don’t think that I can make it through another episode. Thumbs down.
The guy who plays Fred looks too old for the part. It’s particularly strange when you meet his mother in the first/second episode as she looks like his sister, his younger sister! I’m sticking with it but it’s a very odd, clunky, uneven show.
Loved it until the gay scenes. Now I’m over it. Can’t we watch a show or movie without sex. Something for the mind to wonder.