Review: Aftermath 1×1 (Canada: Space; UK: 5*)

The end of intelligence


In Canada: Tuesdays, 10e/7p, Space
In the UK: Tuesdays, 9pm, 5*. Starts tonight

Sometimes, this year has felt like the End of Days. So many famous people dying, Brexit, Turkish coups, Aleppo. The list goes on and we haven’t even reached the Trump White House yet. Or the raining fish. Or the flying zombies.

Those latter two are coming soon, though, along with meteors, earthquakes and all manner of other disasters, according to Space’s Aftermath. It stars real-life couple Anne Heche (Save Me, Hung) and James Tupper (Mercy), who met back in Men In Trees, as a couple with three kids who have to somehow survive the apocalypse. Heche’s former USAF, while Tupper is a professor of old things, the former therefore being handy at shooting the ‘skinwalkers’ that rise up, Tupper useful for explaining that all the earthquakes have freed these ancient creatures trapped under the Earth who need to possess people to interact with the world. Mayan prophecies are in there somewhere, too, and skinwalkers aren’t the only things coming their way, either.

When skinwalkers drive the family out of their house, Tupper and Heche have to go on a road trip to find their errant elder daughter, but soon discover that that’s easier said than done when civilisation is falling apart.

The trouble with Aftermath is that it’s diabolically, laughably bad. It’s stupid, cheaply made and badly directed. Skinwalkers (aka ‘fever heads’) can fly – badly. Giant meteors that should destroy everything for a good 10km only knock out a few city blocks. Civilisation may be collapsing but mobile phone networks are doing just fine. And Tupper and Heche aren’t so much terrified as ‘Huh. The end of the world? Flying zombies? Watcha gonna do, hey? Pass me the shotgun.’

I had to turn the programme off after a quarter of an hour to let the effects of the preposterous rubbish leave my system before I could continue with the rest of it. Don’t bother trying even that much of it.

Author

  • Rob Buckley

    I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.

    View all posts