Season 1 |
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Episode Guide
Episode 1 -| Review Score – 3/5
Episode 2 -| Review Score – 3/5
Episode 3 -| Review Score – 3.5/5
Episode 4 -| Review Score – 3.5/5
Episode 5 -| Review Score – 3/5
Episode 6 -| Review Score – 3.5/5
Episode 7 -| Review Score – 3.5/5
Episode 8 -| Review Score – 3/5
Sci-fi and horror might not seem like very different genres but blending them together is much harder than it looks. Teacup, adapted from Robert R. McCammon’s novel ‘Stinger’, makes a valiant effort to bring the two together but doesn’t quite succeed. While there are strong elements of both, the series doesn’t fuse them into one cohesive whole.
Teacup Season 1 kicks off strongly on the horror front as the Chenoweth family in rural Georgia realises that something is wrong. This ‘something’ is marked by several signs — uneasy and disturbed behaviour from the animals around the farm; a bloodied up woman running through the woods muttering a jumble of words including “murder maker”; a menacing black dog; and the good old flickering lights.
It’s an eerie set of occurrences that becomes all the more uncanny when a man in a gas mask draws a blue line around the town. What happens if you cross the line is best left in the spoilers but suffice it to say that it ups the horror ante by a fair bit. Fans of body horror will enjoy what comes next and this element of the show deserves high praise for its visual distinction.
Soon, these events bring three families together in an effort to figure out just what is happening. And here’s the thing. Before the curtain is pulled back on what’s really happening, the series maintains a subtle but steady level of intrigue and spookiness. Once the big reveal is made though, the show slides from its horror roots into more sci-fi territory. The plot now centres on sci-fi rules and logistics involving a glowing tree and rainbow-coloured liquid.
The two genres feel like separate parts of the show and the writing doesn’t help much either. The pacing is a bit off, swivelling from packed with development to much slower, meandering scenes. Episode 5 takes a detour to the past and serves as an explanatory episode. But its run time exceeds by too much and it only works to take you out of the story’s flow.
Trapping a group of people within a confined space should be enough fodder for a good story filled with complex relationships and rising tension. Teacup Season 1 could also have explored what happens when you suddenly have to put your life in the hands of someone who, up until now, was just a cordial neighbour. But despite some unsettling moments of suspense, the characters are ultimately too thinly written for this to ever come to fruition.
There are some disagreements and one adulterous affair that muddies the waters, but otherwise, all the characters remain in the moulds set for them in Episode 1.
In its focus on the plot, on what is really happening, on the rainbow liquid logistics, character development gets left behind. The protagonists Maggie and James Chenoweth do get to advance their rocky relationship a bit but there are no other emotional arcs to look forward to here. Much less any reason for you to get know and root for the characters.
The series banks on the fact that you want to know the truth. That you want to know how things work. It assumes that the key mystery of how the characters will escape this entrapment is enough to keep you watching. But what use is the mystery when you don’t particularly care about the characters in the first place?
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Verdict - 6/10
6/10