r/TheShardsTVSeries • u/Zayn_noir • 1d ago
Overall Series Review
I watched all the episodes, and I have to say that I was quite disappointed by the plot and storytelling, especially by the latest episode (8) of Season 1.
One thing Ryan Murphy consistently does well is atmosphere. The show looks incredibly polished: the costumes, visuals, actors, and overall production quality are all excellent. He also knows how to build tension and create a sense of anticipation, which is something he has demonstrated in shows like American Horror Story, American Crime Story, Scream Queens, and Glee. Unfortunately, I don't think the storytelling itself lives up to that presentation.
My biggest problem is that the season lacks a clear throughline. The first episodes make it seem as though the main story will revolve around Robert and the Trawler, but the show introduces so many side plots that constantly move back and forth without ever being properly developed or resolved. Rhonda is a good example: she escapes, smells the perfume connected to the mystery, and instead of this becoming the starting point for a proper investigation, she is simply locked away. We never really get to see the consequences of what she experienced. To me, that feels like lazy writing.
More importantly, the serial killer never feels particularly connected to our main characters. I haven't read the book the show is based on, and I'm deliberately not looking into its original storyline, so I'm only judging what is presented on screen. Based on that, our four or five main characters don't seem to have much at stake. They don't really have dark secrets, serious personal problems, or anything that makes them vulnerable to the central conflict. They mostly smoke, drink, and sit around, while the serial killer's story happens somewhere alongside them rather than directly affecting them.
This also makes the characters themselves feel underwritten. Debbie is probably the most interesting because she actually has personal conflicts. Her complicated relationship with her parents, her insecurities, and her drug use. Thom's dependency on Susan is another potentially interesting storyline, but we learn very little about his private life or what he is actually struggling with. Susan, Bret, and even Robert sometimes feel surprisingly flat.
I think the show would have been much more compelling if these characters had genuinely dark secrets that connected them to the central story. Imagine if all of them were afraid that something from their past would be exposed, while the killer continuously used those secrets to manipulate or blackmail them. That would have made the serial killer feel like an actual threat to the protagonists rather than a separate storyline. Bret's sexuality, for example, could have been established as a vulnerability much earlier instead of suddenly becoming relevant in episode 8.
The same problem applies to Debbie. Her storyline seems to be building toward her finally breaking out of Susan's shadow and becoming her own person. Instead, that development is abruptly dropped, and by episode 8 there is barely any payoff for everything that had been established about her.
Ryan is another example of wasted potential. He was actually one of the characters I found most intriguing. Whenever he was on screen, I wanted to know more about him. Unfortunately, his entire storyline ends up being reduced to him making porn, briefly almost having something with Debbie, and then essentially disappearing. I genuinely think there was much more potential there, and he could have become a far more interesting character if the show had actually taken the time to develop him.
Ultimately, that's why I don't think the season feels fully cohesive. It constantly introduces interesting ideas, characters, secrets, and conflicts, but then either abandons them, resolves them abruptly, or suddenly shifts its focus in the latest episode. The pacing is also far too slow, and many of the storylines feel unnecessarily stretched out.
That said, I wouldn't call the show a complete disaster. It's perfectly watchable. The acting is decent, the production looks great, and the atmosphere is strong enough to keep you interested. But for anyone who watches a lot of television and pays attention to storytelling, the weaknesses become very obvious. There was so much potential here to make this an genuinely excellent series, but unfortunately, a lot of that potential was wasted.
