Hey everyone, I know you all are still in the grips of a pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of your family and friends, and ruined many more lives through job loss, family disruption and generalized fear and loss of routine, but might I interest you in a television series about an even deadlier pandemic? Hear me out. There’s a reason Contagion was a number-one rental in the early stages of the pandemic; just as some people prefer their media to pivot away from reality, and others prefer running full-tilt towards it.
If you are still too pandemic-weary to watch this series in current times, I get that. However, I don’t care if there is a pandemic still going on. You should read Station Eleven.
It’s just a great novel. Shakespeare, music, comic books, a pandemic, knife-throwing, insane religious wackos…It’s like my life these past couple years, give or take one or two of those things. I would describe the book as a combination of The Road (whatever caused civilization to collapse is far in the past, the actual era of things collapsing is skipped over) and Lost (lots of characters with lots of flashbacks), plus a weird goofy sense of humor (it’s specifically about a Shakespeare troupe making a living traveling between settlements). I find the theme of timeless stories speaking to one’s current reality in unexpected ways very moving and comforting. If you’re focused on the misalignment of specific fictional vs. nonfictional details, you might be missing the point. The pandemic itself isn’t what it’s about — it’s just an excuse to send civilization back to a bunch of isolated enclaves and question what’s worth bringing forward into the future. Could just as easily be an asteroid, or a war, or various Declines of Civilizations.
Showrunner Patrick Somerville created the series based on St. John Mandel’s work. Somerville’s previous writing credits include the Netflix series Maniac and Damon Lindelof’s The Leftovers. Both of those are highly recommended as well.
Spoilers ahead.
While Station Eleven is bookended by two Shakespeare tragedies – it begins with King Lear and ends on Hamlet – the show itself is pure late period Shakespeare romance, like Cymbeline or the Tempest (we even have a character named Miranda). The show is full of odd tonal shifts, strange coincidences (who names their kid after a deadly hurricane?) and, most importantly, the recognition scenes at the end that bring long lost characters back together. I think the show is best appreciated on those terms, and will not be for everyone. I was truly there for it, though.
The story of the novel is much more about memory and the ways that art creates our humanity. Art survives when science and technology fail, and the novel makes much of the line that “survival is insufficient.” Art helps us make sense of the world and cling to hope. The people who lose memory (Tyler/Prophet with his “there is no before”) lose that shared humanity.
I think the key to all this is in how the show uses the Station 11 the book: as a metaphorical lifeline for remembering how to return to one’s humanity after “damage….then escape.” I also like how the series made it very clear that graphic novel is not some masterpiece. It is just a remnant made important by its survival, which I suppose maps thematically onto the series as a whole.
Over and over we see the book take root in the character’s minds, followed by them discovering the fervor and vision to stay alive and rebuild after trauma (in whatever way that character is compelled to act out). Even Jeevan and Clark. Just like it took Miranda years to work out on her own and put on paper. Miranda saying she knew how to finally finish the book comes when she realizes she doesn’t have to keep isolating herself, in fact she should help build… and then a week later the world ends. At that moment the drifting for her is over, and it’s the (emotional) path other characters take as well.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the one character who read the book and didn’t follow the theme of the story was Tyler, because he read it as a kid and burned it, slowly twisting its memory. By the time he’s rallied the children cult/followers, he doesn’t have the book to confirm or deny rogue ideas that come up, and his group takes on a life of their own. He’s become a fundamentalist, and when he’s reconnected with the book it seems to tame him, and bring him back from the brink.
You can really sense The Leftovers DNA—in this whole series, but in the finale especially. The emphasis on losing and finding people, the messiness of human relationships, and forgiveness—even when it’s unearned (can it ever be?)—are central themes in both. The series, Station Eleven, is streaming now in its entirety on HBO MAX.