Hulu tries their hand at the sci-fi anthology game, with the results being often predictable, yet strangely fulfilling
“I’m sorry, viewer. The TV show you’re searching for cannot be streamed in your reality. Please standby for re-connection. In the darkest depths of cyberspace there is another world. A lost dimension home to wonders unseen and terrors unspeakable. Stories unlike any ever told until now. Do not click back. Do not reload. We have reconnected to Dimension 404.”
Anthology series have strangely become a goldmine of programming. It’s a genre that the public have fallen in love with so hard that there are currently both anthology shows of the episodic and seasonal nature keeping most networks’ schedules warm. What was once a niche, specialty genre suited for cable channels like HBO is now something that everyone is trying to get a piece of, hoping for the next big pop culture phenomenon a la Black Mirror. Dimension 404 is not Black Mirror even though it might shamelessly want to be. It wears the show’s clothes and pretends to be it in front of the mirror, but it’s not an impression that does the show any favors.
In spite of the series pushing a very tech-heavy backdrop for its stories, Dimension 404 skews much more towards something lighter like Amazing Stories than a series that’s more contemplative and sci-fi-based like Outer Limits or Twilight Zone. Even if Dimension 404 might try and embrace the technology angle, any science fiction going on here is in the very soft territory.
The introduction that starts off each episode of Dimension 404 cryptically tells its audience:
“I’m sorry, viewer. The TV show you’re searching for cannot be streamed in your reality. Please standby for re-connection. In the darkest depths of cyberspace there is another world. A lost dimension home to wonders unseen and terrors unspeakable. Stories unlike any ever told until now. Do not click back. Do not reload. We have reconnected to Dimension 404.”
This intro ends up acting as a pretty perfect distillation of Dimension 404. It’s a little too silly for its own good and makes you cringe a little bit, just like the show itself. It’s worth noting that Mark Hamill acts as the series’ narrator and pseudo-Rod Serling, but he also hammers the episodes’ messages in a little too hard and comes across as sometimes hackneyed. A playful, wry host is a convention of the genre to some degree, but this still feels like it’s trying too hard. Elsewhere the tone of the series also feels “off”, with lighting and other elements seeming just askew enough to not feel right.
Actually, what Dimension 404 ends up feeling like is the sort of anthology horror that you’d see on TV during Saturday morning, not Friday night. That being said, this is something that young adults and early teens will probably eat up and love like hell. It does seem more palatable for a younger audience, even if I don’t think that’s its intended demographic. Curiously, the show that this ended up reminding me the most of is Eerie, Indiana, which isn’t even an anthology series.
Most episodes of Dimension 404 see some sort of futuristic concept in play or an idea that leans into science fiction in some capacity. That gives the series a rather large playground to mess around in, but admittedly the series works best when it’s trying to figure out what its own voice is rather than doing watered down takes on what other shows have done better. Black Mirror has been mentioned a bunch in here, but it’s not without good reason. Charlie Brooker’s series features some of the most astute, prescient parables involving post-modern technology that you’ll ever come across. If you’re going to attempt to re-explore this material, you better have something damn important to say, and Dimension 404 usually falls short. The direction of episodes is usually pretty telegraphed, with most twists being clear before they take place. Other shows are more mysterious about where their stories are heading, but with this it almost feels like you’re just waiting for the inevitable turn to happen. Dimension 404 pulls from standard clichés more than it does from any meaningful insight into the human condition or social commentary.
What does work in Dimension 404’s favor is that it plays with both dramatic and comedic stories. The variety is certainly beneficial to the series, with the show’s writing staff appearing to be more comfortable skewing into the lighter and more comedic fare. The series pulls together some commendable talent too, with people like Patton Oswalt, Joel McHale, Megan Mullally, Sarah Hyland, and Tom Noonan helping bring these stories to life. I also cared about the characters and wanted to see some sort of justice happening for them in all of the episodes that I watched, which is saying something. There’s a good foundation in place here, it just needs to better the materials that it’s using to build. The team behind the series, Dez Dolly and Will Campos (along with the help of Dan Johnson and David Welch), seem to be handling the stories for the entire season. Gaining a different perspective and enlisting more outside talent and “guest writers/directors” would likely do the show well.
Dimension 404’s stories deal with topics like matchmaking and relationships in the digital age, the over-complication and advancement of movie theaters, or time travel, with each episode managing to find some angle that’s interesting on what they’re exploring. It just often takes too long to get there. For instance, the show’s premiere episode, “Matchmaker” does eventually get into interesting material exploring free will and individuality (and clones!), but it’s stuck hiding behind the shoddy execution of a dating app. Once Dimension 404 is able to move past its confidence issues, it’ll be able to become the great show that it’s trying to be. Another installment, “Cinethrax”, goes out on an ending that doesn’t really work or make a ton of sense, yet it feels oddly appropriate for anthology horror territory. Even though the math here doesn’t add up, the sum of its parts is still weirdly comforting. And that’s kind of how the show feels as a whole.
“Chronos” was perhaps the best episode of the three episodes that I saw, but also by far the silliest. Time travel and paradoxes are really hard to pull off well, but this episode doesn’t buckle under the pressure. It also gleefully blows the concept out of proportion where so much time traveling is being done within a small time frame that it’s not long before five versions of the characters are running around in near-tandem of each other.
At the end of the day, Dimension 404 is just trying to be a weird, spooky anthology show with a decent sense of humor, which is hardly a bad thing. If this show is given the chance to go on beyond its initial season of six episodes (which it most definitely does deserve), I’m sure Dolly, Campos, Johnson, and Welch will only get more refined in their ability to deliver these tech-heavy slices of justice. Dimension 404 may not completely blow you away or break your mind in half the way other anthology shows can, but it’s incredibly easy viewing and just fun television to binge on. Plus, it pushes some rather imaginative ideas in the process.
It’s weird that I don’t think Dimension 404 is necessarily a great show, but I do think it’s worth watching, which isn’t something I’d say for most shows of that quality level. This is bite-sized madness that gets to reset each episode, and there’s a certain charm in that, even if it’s not pulled off in the best manner.
2.5/5
This review is based on three hour-long episodes from ‘Dimension 404’s’ first season
‘Dimension 404’s’ first season is currently streaming on Hulu, with new episodes on Tuesdays
