5 Ways Netflix Can Improve on Between
Netflix recently streamed the season finale of freshman post-apocalyptic drama Between, which answered a few of our burning questions: What caused the virus? Is there a cure? And what about the outside world? The finale also posed an important new question: What happens next to Pretty Lake’s youngest residents? Small town Pretty Lake suffers from a mysterious virus that kills anyone over the age of 21, causing the government to build fences around the town as a quarantine protocol. It’s a promising premise, which was probably why Netflix wanted to forgo its binge-style viewing to try it out as a weekly release.
Unfortunately, Between doesn’t live up to what it could’ve have been.
The potential in this series lies in the Under The Dome-like story, but Under The Dome (which premiered its third season the same night Between streamed the finale) is the better show. What brings the new series down are the so-bland-it-hurts characters and stiff dialogue—a double whammy that would hurt any show, no matter how fascinating the plotlines.
Now that Netflix has decided to continue with Between, it needs to look at what went wrong with the debut season. Here are 5 areas where Netlix can begin with the improvements.
1. Add Personable Qualities to Characters
There are two ways Netflix can fix its character problem—let them die from the virus, or better yet, give viewers reasons to root for them. You have Chuck (Justin Kelly), the rich high school jock, who employed himself as Pretty Lake’s sheriff with his teammates as his gun-wielding officers. Chuck wanted to keep everyone safe, but he lost sympathy when he started making up his own punishments, and his rash decisions to ambush the more experienced Creekers never panned out well. Then there’s the lead woman, Wiley (played by Jennette McCurdy)—the rebellious daughter of a preacher, who was pregnant at the start of the series. McCurdy is one of the few better actors on the roster and she had moments worth rooting for, but her character’s stubbornness and unwillingness to cooperate with her older sister Melissa (Brooke Palsson)—who wasn’t any better—can get grating. Yes, they are high school kids surviving in an adult-less world, but it’s hard to want them to survive or be saved when they are so annoying.