Just watched the first two episodes

And I want so much to like this... The setting is beautiful. It makes me want to go to Idaho. And some of the characters are quirky and cool and I want to see more of them... But the motivations behind their actions are missing. Why does the sheriff always have to be eating ice cream? I get it - he's a cold blooded enforcer of whatever law they're living under there, and the ice cream thing is a juxtaposition or contrast or whatever to make you think he's some kind of useless authory figure before you actually find out his true role. But it looks so ridiculous! And the woman in reception playing solitaire day after day... How mind numbingly boring for her. Who would willingly endure that without one day just deciding to top themself. What is she meant to do for the rest of her life? Wait around for years in the hopes that someone drops into town who's her age with her particular interests and then have a weird stilted marriage where they both know they're captive and half-pretending?

Then we have the Bollingers, who dob in Burke and Juliette Lewis, and for what? Clearly they'd be bored *beep* in that town, selling toys, mowing lawns, and whatever else, after being in the secret service - and that brings me to the next point: why wouldn't the townspeople simply rise up against the ice cream swilling sheriff and overthrow him, or at least, beat the crap out of him and lock him in his own cell? It doesn't make sense.

Then there's the fact that at the end of episode one the psychiatrist and the psychopathic nurse wanted so badly to operate on this guy that they had someone knock him out cold and then chained him to a gurney. Then in episode 2, after he's escaped clean, suddenly they're quite content to let him just walk around town asking questions. Doesn't gel. I mean, at one point, he walks right into the morgue and takes something of importance from the dead man's belongings. And all that stands in his way is the weird nurse. At that point why don't they knock him out or whatever and do their little operation like they so desperately wanted to? They switch back to, "Oh, you have massive head injuries, and we wanted to fix it but you're an idiot."

I feel that it's not consistent. Either threaten him with a lobotomy (or whatever it is) without general anaesthetic, or pretend the operation is for his 'injury'. But don't do both, and don't switch between the two. It's annoying. Like, is he crazy or are they trying to cut chunks of his brain out. One or the other.

Which brings me to the next point: the wall hangings that tell everyone not to discuss the past or whatever. So he goes into the toy store and does just that. Okay, fine. I get it. He's a bit obtuse. But the woman? Bollinger? She actually stands there and says quite clearly "Hey, there are cameras and microphones everywhere. But I'm telling you to go visit the widow anyway" - who the hell is enforcing the rule at that point? What's the point of microphones and cameras everywhere if they aren't really used?

It reminds me of Lost. Until someone somewhere said that this was based on a book I actually thought the makers of this show were just pantsing it. It seemed like they'd come up with this cool premise - weird electric fenced in town in Idaho woods full of captives - and then they were just adding random polar bears and shadow beasts and hutches and whatever hoping that one day everything would come together and make sense.

Lost has a lot to answer for...

Anyways, I'm going to watch another episode. Not sure why. Juliette Lewis is gone so I don't have to endure her terrible acting anymore, so that's a plus. But I still somehow don't get the feeling that any of this is ever going to come together in a way that I'll find even vaguely satisfying. This is one of the problems I have with this genre in general - if they'd kept everything vaguely realistic, I might be able to buy it. But when they added in this element of fantasy and crossed over from sci fi into it - by having time do weird things - they kind of lost me there. Why bother with that element? What purpose could it possibly serve?

Maybe my questions will be answered (I doubt it) when I watch some more episodes or maybe it'll just end up a steaming pile of... Randomness.