The Shards

First Impressions: A Glimpse into Buckley's Dark Halls

When you first land on "The Shards" you feel like you’ve discovered a cool but slightly strange diorama of one part of privileged 1980s LA. From the moment the remote settles the images suck you in; sharp, polished with almost a nostalgic sheen. The dark undercurrents come through the visuals. These first images along with the creative partnership of Ryan Murphy and Bret Easton Ellis, begin to hint at what the show is going for. The series is going for the psychological territory and building to horror. Meet Bret Easton Ellis, the character, a 17 year old at the fictional Buckley Prep during a year that, by his own account, is not that important to him until a new student, Robert Mallory, disrupts everything. That’s not the only disruption though. Robert’s presence and arrival coincides with a serial killer, The Trawler, who begins to haunt this city. The show is building to a unique combination of genres including coming of age and Psychological thrillers mixed with some true crime anxieties.

The first ten minutes set the tone and establish atmospheric elements that draw you into the world of~$artifact$. The cast featuring Igby Rigney, Kaia Gerber, and Homer Gere, establish the tone of privileged and detached youth culture that makes this offering distinct from the typical high school experience. The dialogue contains layers of subtext that the director draws out through the isolation of a social environment that is literally crowded. For a casual viewer flipping through Pikashow, the aesthetic appeal combined with the hint of immediate danger provides strong hooks. The show doesn't use loud, flashy action to demand your attention, rather, it relies on an intriguing mystery and a sense of unease to draw you in. It is the type of show that makes you ponder what lies beneath the shiny exterior of such a luxurious world and whether the viewer is psychologically equipped to face that reality.

Holding Up: Style, Substance, and the Binge Pull

By the time you've settled into "The Shards," the series continues to dazzle with binge-worthy visuals. HD streaming on Pikashow brings out the attention to period detail and the lavish cinematography to capture the 1980s. The sound design also helps immersing the audience into the era including subtle cues and choice tracks. While the sound design helping show off the time and build tension is great, initially the flashy set-pieces helps conceal the same problem the show suffers from overall, which is style > substance. Even if the direction is wisely composed, the pacing at times is slow.

The mystery at the heart of the show – the Trawler and the sharer with his namesake, Robert Mallory- is compelling, but the show often structures episodes in an obscure way, showing lengthy sequences of skillfully composed imagery that are often out of time and don't help move the plot along to the impatient viewer. This is further complicated by the fact the show shifts so much focus to these lengthy character studies that help the audience see the shows world, but not often help the plot.

The young cast does a good job, and Igby Rigney does a stand out job playing the central role with the right amount of youthful intensity and the right amount of awareness of the sinister nature of the world. Kaia Gerber and Homer Gere add depth with their nuanced performances. The series does an amazing job of creating a mood that is paranoid and full of suspicion of every character, making you second guess everything. The high school drama infused with the serial killer plot, works most of the time, but some times one of the genres takes over and becomes the focus, making the other plot line feel relegated to the background. The premise also leads to uneven pacing and curiosity of what is going to happen next, interspersed with the strong urge to check your social media feed. The audience's reception was positive. They enjoyed the mixture of camp with a little touch of a psychological thriller even if the critics were a bit more mixed about the series as a whole.

Keep or Flip? Against the Live TV Gauntlet

Will The Shards stand up to the instantaneous entertainment of live TV or the adrenaline of a live cricket match in the flip test? This is a difficult one. If you are searching for speedy entertainment, then the series may not be for you as it has quite deliberate pacing. Many shows take time to set up a mood, but sooner or later, an event or revelation will occur. This may not happen as quickly in The Shards, but slow pacing and focus on details over rapid events or plot twists makes it ideal to fill in the experiential void left by sports matchup or a breaking news report. If you want entertainment that will capture your senses in a particular time and space, The Shards will give you what you are looking for with a large dose of decadence.

If you’re the kind of viewer that enjoys a deep, patient-appreciation kind of story, then this series is just for you. Its steadily building set pieces and psychological depth reward the careful viewer. Layering a creepy, unseen threat against a classic high school story creates an interesting kind of tension in a somewhat slow-paced drama. The unique conflict, when rounded out by a strong sense of place, makes this mystery the perfect accompaniment to a dark, moody setting. The story builds a strong need for commitment to watch it in its entirety, but the strong, dark sense of style and intelligent writing will make any fan ‘The Shards’ worth the watch. The risk of losing your remote to the siren call of TV-less sports and even more immediate news updates is worth taking though, it’s just a flawed, ambitious story that won’t disappoint when watched in the proper setting. It deserves its spot in your watchlist when you’re looking for something you don’t really need to think about.