Lost in the Woods
by Evan Shultz
Wandering through the woods at twilight, your head ducking under boughs and your hands slick from the moss-soaked branches that you brace against as you walk a path that is no longer quite there—this is the joy and terror of getting yourself lost. It feels clean and free, because out there the civilized world has no claim to your life and your life has no claim on civilization, even if something goes wrong…
Now, imagine waking up to discover there is no more civilized world – anywhere. That’s the premise behind Afterworld, a sort of online television show encapsulated within a javascript-run pop-up. Russell Shoemaker, advertising agent, wakes up in his New York hotel room to discover that the vast majority of the world’s population has disappeared overnight, and that, at the same time, electronic technology has stopped working. To make matters worse, Russell is from Seattle. He was on a business trip when “the fall” happened, and his wife and daughter are still back home.
Maybe.
So Russell sets out to do what any man likes to think he’d do under the same circumstances: He sets off for Seattle, even if he has to walk the whole way.
Afterworld tells its story on two platforms simultaneously, both available through the website with no downloads required. First, through a series of short episodes, none more than a few minutes long. Second, in a copy of Russell’s journal complete with his powerful illustrations. Each medium tells the same story, and you can definitely follow the plot in one without the other; but there are details and insights unique to each medium that add depth to the story, so I recommend checking both of them out.
To present their work, the site’s creators have invented several fascinating interfaces. To turn a page in the journal, the reader has to actually click and drag the page – much less disorienting than the click-induced jump-cut most interactive journals use. And instead of just a scrollable list of episodes, an Interactive Map displays the hero’s path in a series of points and lines zigzagging across the United States. Clicking on one of Russell’s stops opens a menu of episodes that take place there.
The episodes themselves strike a thematic tone somewhere between Stephen King’s The Stand and the television show Lost, with mortal peril, conspiracies, and metaphysical twists woven into the otherwise simple tale. Afterworld is a picaresque, where each stop brings a new story arc, a virtual exhibit in a dream-museum illustrating yet another way people have tried to adapt to life without technology. Or occasionally someone just trying to kill Russell. In either case, the actual story is told at the level of location, not at the level of season or episode, so the map-menu not only helps you visualize the plot, it also keeps you from getting lost in it.
As soon as you see an episode you’ll realize how odd Afterword is willing to be. The creators use a low-budget CGI program to animate each episode — no, not animate, illustrate. Objects and people on the screen seldom move. One still frame fades into the next to imply the rest of the action. Overall the episodes look like storybook dream sequences in slow motion: occasionally very effective; occasionally just confusing; mostly just, well, bland. If that were Afterworld’s only problem, it would still be a wonder to behold.
Unfortunately, the problems run much deeper. Just as the bulk of the video consists of frames fading into each other, the bulk of the audio consists of Russell Shoemaker narrating. In fact, the bulk of the story consists of Russell Shoemaker narrating. Real dialogue never lasts for three lines: Attempts at character development consist of Russell describing other people in his voice-over. Entire conversations get summed up in single sentences. Russell summarizes scenes that might otherwise have created tension or suspense, then spends the time saved documenting his realizations and his emotional state. Climactic revelations begin with Russell saying the words, “Turns out…”
In Afterworld, the narration becomes a shortcut for advancing the plot, and, as Russell comments in one episode, “The problem with shortcuts is, there’s usually a catch”—in this case, negligible suspense and character development. When one finally reaches the end of a location’s arc, only to have everything that’s built up over the last five episodes resolved in paragraph form, one feels just a bit cheated.
And voice-over not only dulls the parts that should be exciting, it dulls the parts that were already dull, making them even duller. The episodes are riddled with plot-sedating scenes of Russell alone, trying to survive in the wilderness or just traveling past gas stations overtaken with creeper vines, while the voice-over rambles about how technology was a lie and nature proved itself all-powerful. The show’s message can be summed up in four sentences:
– Technology is bad, because it separates man from nature and creates the illusion of control.
– People are basically good and could all just get along if only they would overcome their fear and set aside their differences.
– Reason is good, faith is bad, religious faith is even worse.
– If you just let go and do what the universe wants you to do then everything will turn out all right.
Afterworld’s story demonstrates these four arguments quite clearly (if not always well; some of the resolutions strain credulity to the point of naïveté), but just in case the viewer misses one, the narration makes sure to spell out explicitly each precept whenever possible. Such editorializing saps the entertainment value without advancing the story one iota. Afterworld’s first season might have been a masterpiece, crude CGI or no. Instead it’s merely a collection of good but unpolished ideas.
Is it worth checking out? Oh, definitely. The episodes occasionally deliver a compelling story in spite of themselves; even the ones that fall short of compelling at least achieve interesting. Most people could watch an entire location worth of episodes and still have half their lunch break left over to browse the magnificent artwork in Russell’s journal. And, most promising of all, Afterworld gets better as it goes. Who knows—Afterworld, Season Two may find a way to kick the narration habit and get out of the way of its own story.
Images used above are available as wallpapers in the downloads section.
