Friday Finds shares a piece of content I’ve recently discovered on broadcast, cable, or streaming TV.
Today’s find: Homecoming
Genre: Half hour drama
Origin: Amazon Studios/Universal Cable
Find it on: Amazon Prime, season 1 (10x)
My wife and I are not typically super-binge viewers. However, the new Amazon series Homecoming saw us watch all 10 episodes over the course of a weekend afternoon.
Based on a podcast of the same name, Homecoming starts off a bit slowly in the first episode. The series does quickly gather steam as the story progresses. Sadly, little can be said about the story without getting into possible spoilers. The savvy viewer will figure out the basics of the story by the third episode. The suspense is in watching the characters discover what’s happening, and in learning the details about how the characters ended up where they are.
One thing about the story that is not spoiler-y, is that it takes place in two time periods that are four years apart. The creative team uses some interesting production techniques – some obvious, some subtle – to differentiate between the two periods, and to visually illustrate certain characters’ confusion. Less positive are some subplot parallels that are rather overt echoes of the main action, but that’s me being picky.
The Cast
The acting is excellent. The series features Julia Roberts in her much-ballyhooed initiation into series television. Key roles are played by up-and-comer Stephan James and Boardwalk Empire alumni Shea Whigham and Bobby Cannavale. This being a big-budget Amazon production, we also see big names like Sissy Spacek and Durmot Mulroney populating characters around the periphery of the story.
Another interesting note is the varying times of each episode. From my count, these varied from 26 to 33 minutes. As noted in my new book “The Genius Box,” Peak TV and streaming has given creatives the power to film an episode to the story, rather than keeping within a set 30 or 60 minute time frame to fit legacy television time slots. This series is a prime example of this trend.
Don’t forget to check out Homecoming on Amazon.
David Tice is the principal of TiceVision LLC, a media research consultancy.
Read his new book, “The Genius Box” – details here
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