2 out of 5

Creator: Jack Thorne

The opening pieces of the first episodes of ‘The Fades’ are pretty telling for what to expect: poor editing decisions, uncertain tone, and uninvolving characters.  We witness a ‘mysterious’ phone conversation that’s interrupted by a quick-cut beastie; the first of many of the frequently repeated vision of teen Paul (Iain De Caestecker, now on Marvel’s SHIELD) – which we only immediately understand as the apocalypse because it was in the show’s description – some chummy interactions between Paul and excitable best friend Mac (Daniel Kaluuya, who is excellent here and probably the highlight of the mini), and then some dour and vague conversations concerning otherworldly things between dour people.  The beastie is a ‘Fade,’ a spirit which missed its chance to ‘ascend’ and is now so, so jealous of those with Life, and the dour peops are ‘Angelics,’ a ring of guardians who can see the dead and are trying to maintain a peace with those more violent of the Fades and maybe sometimes have powers.  And maybe Paul can see the dead, and maybe Paul’s getting some powers.  And maybe he’ll play a big role in either causing the events in his dream or in preventing them from coming to fruition…  The problem here isn’t the story, which honestly adds some rather interesting elements to the “Only YOU can save the world!” genre – it’s how this story is presented.  The Fades and its characters exists fully in the minds of its writer (Jack Thorne) and director (Farren Blackburn), but they forgot to properly structure it for TV.  So these bits and pieces float across the screen – the first episode jamming a lot of the information above into a few revelatory minutes – almost fully formed, without ‘earning’ a sense of import.  Similarly, we are introduced to the characters not by getting to know them, but because they happen to be in frame when the story is going on.  At no point did I actually feel connected to Paul’s journey to accepting his role in matters, nor did the threat of the Fades really seem to matter.  Distilling this even further is the series’ stuttering blending of humor, horror, action and depressive drama.  Much of the humor comes from Paul and Mac’s interactions.  This is also the only source of emotional wealth in the series.  The friendship felt true and it was actually communicated on screen so that we understood its value, and Kaluuya’s portrayal of Mac as the humor-as-diversion master was excellent.  But ‘Fades’ tries to leverage this levity elsewhere – into some suspension-of-disbelief killing intros and Paul’s attempted wooing of a ladyfriend – and it just doesn’t mesh well with the gloom and doom stomping in the background.  Along these lines, scenes will suddenly stumble into zombie horror or guns-blazing action, confusing the pacing which is mostly a slow-burn.  ‘Fades’ has valuable ideas and though the final episode’s climax is a little iffy, the ending shows a brave sense of scope that suggested a second series might’ve improved on things… alas, we only have the one, and its a very imperfect and rather unsatisfying one, spread about too unevenly to match the intended impact of its world-ending story.