The original post: /r/television by /u/honeyfive on 2026-03-11 23:57:11+00:00.
****Spoilers for season one of Paradise****
Paradise, starring Sterling K Brown,* *is a very cool concept with some very talented people involved. The mysteries that were being introduced in the first few episodes (“where are these people?” “who killed the President?” etc.) were pretty compelling. Mysteries that, before streaming took over television, would have had a long time to simmer. Now, these events have to be crammed into 8 episodes.
I’ve heard the vibe of the show being likened to Lost, which I find interesting given the character-driven narrative that is the beating heart of that show. But I feel this drive (or lack thereof) is exactly what holds the first season of Paradise back.
I wanna use episode 4, “Agent Billy Pace” as an example. By this point, we know the President has been killed, the city is located in a mountain-dome, and something happened on the surface that ended the world as we know it. This episode starts off by playing on more tantalizing questions - “who really is Billy?” “can we trust him, or is he behind all of this?” and “what happened on this expedition to the surface?”
Well, before I could even finish asking these questions, they were wrapped up in the very same episode. And I just felt the wind taken out of my sails. In less than an hour, we are introduced to a new character, astrophysicist Susan Donnelly, told she went looking for answers on the surface, learned that she disappeared, and that she was killed by Billy, on Sinatra’s orders, and also that there is still life above ground, and that Sinatra is trying to keep this fact hidden. These revelations are also maybe 1/4 of the episode. This is simply not enough time to tell this story. The huge reveal that there’s life above ground is end-of-season-cliffhanger material that is just unceremoniously dropped in this episode.
In a longer season we could have been introduced to characters in the town early on, gotten to know and care about them, then feel something when they’re gone. Instead, we have Billy dying in the very same episode that delves into his backstory, and then we see him again in a flashback in the following episode before any other characters even learn that he’s dead. The best way I can describe this series is being bloated in a condensed space, so nothing has room to breathe.
Anyway, those are my very convoluted two-cents. I don’t dislike the show, but I’m consistently left feeling it could be incredible but keeps falling short. Anyone else feel like this?