Review By: Pugilist

It's been a banner week for web series.  We've seen the good, the bad, and now, the studiously Avant-garde.

Gravityland is a web series by John Herman and based in New Hampshire.  Each episode runs around five (5) minutes and has excellent production qualities.  The camera work is well done, the sound quality is excellent, there's interesting music both as background and during the interludes, and the editing is smooth.  Added to this is dialogue competently delivered.

If only there was a plot.  All the great production values in the world can't cover the lack of a story.

I can't help but believe that someone saw Twin Peaks and thought "that makes too much sense."  I'll be honest, I didn't care for Twin Peaks, I don't like atonal jazz, and Gravityland is lost on me.

Yes I get that there are characters intertwined through their lives and actions, yes i get that the viewers write some of the episodes, yes I get that we are supposed to believe there is an over-arching storyline that is being exposed to us in dribs and drabs.  I get all that, I just don't find it compelling.

Perhaps if Gravityland didn't try so hard to be hip, cool, tragically misunderstood, or whatever.  Perhaps if they put some of this energy into developing more than a hint to an allusion to a shadow of a reflection of a story.  I'm not asking for a complete segment in five minutes but I am asking for some semblance of a plan.

Gravityland can be viewed as a strobe light shone on selected people during a normal day.  Fine, but do you really care to watch 53 seconds of the lives of random people you see on the street?  Thus far in the series we've got a misunderstood purse snatcher, an anti-social door-to-door salesman. a pop star, and undefined couple, a nagging mother, a "good" sister, a winsome store clerk, the cast of your standard comic/game shop, a character actor, a couple of agents, and an acrophobe who dresses in tin foil.  Add it all together, stir it up with a stick, and randomly pour it into film.

Currently there is no meaning to the series beyond what the fans paste on it.  That's fine.  As long as I'm not paying for it and no children are being hurt, what consenting adults do with their time is none of my damn business.  But the series is out there to be reviewed and my review is this:

After 10 five (5) minute episodes, I expect the writer to have put more work into the meaning behind the series than I have.  With Gravityland, that is not the case.  Now, if this is all just a visual "choose your own adventure" series, fine.  Have a grand old time.  But I can't pretend it's anything more and not matter how wonderful a time the folks playing game have, at the end of the day, the longer they play, the more people they exclude. 

Right now, I'm excluded and that will have to do.  I'll give the production values a 9 and the story a 3.  Average it out any way you desire.

Of course, you are welcome to tell me I am full of crap, I often am.  Check out the series and decide for yourself.   

http://www.gravityland.com