30 | New Scientist | 22 January 2022
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TV
Station Eleven
Created by Patrick Somerville
StarzPlay (from 30 January in UK)EARLY in the covid-19 pandemic,
as people struggled to make sense
of the unfolding global crisis, many
turned to stories almost as often
as the latest news and science.
In January 2020, Steven
Soderbergh’s Contagion entered
the top 10 of the UK iTunes movie
rental charts nearly a decade
after its release. And much to
the bemusement of its author,
Emily St John Mandel, the 2014
dystopian novel Station Eleven –
in which the “Georgia flu” kills
most of the world’s population –
suddenly gained a new audience.
“I don’t know who in their right
mind would want to read Station
Eleven during a pandemic,”
Mandel said at the time.
The book has since been
adapted into a 10-part miniseries
by screenwriter Patrick
Somerville, who also wrote for
The Leftovers, another critically
acclaimed drama about the
collapse of civilisation. His
adaptation of Station Eleven
was released to rave reviews
in the US and Australia.
Station Eleven follows Kirsten
(Mackenzie Davis), first as a child
actor (Matilda Lawler) orphaned
by the Georgia flu in present-day
Chicago and then 20 years in the
future, where she makes a living as
a roving performer in a theatre
troupe called the Travelling
Symphony. She and her friends
tour the settlements of the Great
Lakes performing music and
Shakespeare plays to survivors,
lifting their spirits and sharing
their motto (originally from
Star Trek: Voyager): “Survival
is insufficient”.These two timelines, year zero
and year 20, blur and merge with
Kirsten’s fears for the future and
recollections of her traumatic
past, both of which intrude on
her present. In particular, her
thoughts return to Jeevan (Himesh
Patel) and his brother Frank
(Nabhaan Rizwan), who took her
in during the first weeks of the
pandemic. Kirsten also repeatedlyreturns to a graphic novel, called
Station Eleven, which she clung
to as a child, and which takes
on totemic importance in the
post-pandemic world.
Most of the characters we meet
have some connection to the
graphic novel and, in the series,
its spaceman protagonist Doctor
Eleven takes on a comforting
presence, watching over Kirsten
and her friends like a sort of
benevolent god. The connectionsNot everyone is at peace in
the post-pandemic world, as
Kirsten and her friends discover
with often devastating results.
However, without shying away
from confronting the turmoil
and trauma of massive societal
change, Station Eleven paints
a surprisingly uplifting picture
of the future, showing how
civilisation might be rebuilt
with art and community at its
centre. It is a comforting vision
as we ease into year three of living
with covid-19.
Mandel recently said she felt
“profoundly uncomfortable” that
her novel dealing with a fictional
pandemic was being boosted by
a real-world life-or-death one. But
as these uncertain times continue,
Station Eleven’s vision of the
future – where humanity endures,
and beauty is cherished – is a
reassuring one to share in. ❚Elle Hunt is a freelance writer
based in Norfolk, UKbetween characters are gradually
revealed as the series slides back
and forth in time. Miranda
(Danielle Deadwyler) is the author
and illustrator of the graphic
novel, while her ex-husband
Arthur (Gael García Bernal) is
a movie star who was acting
alongside young Kirsten in
King Lear^ in the “before”. He
dies on stage from Georgia flu.
Though the pandemic of the
TV show is a near-extinction
event, the episodes set in year
zero show a world unsettlingly like
2020, with supermarket shelves
stripped bare, cities emptied and
aircraft grounded. It also captures
the lockdown surge in creativity
as Kirsten, Jeevan and Frank find
purpose and unity in making
music and plays as the end of
the world unfolds around them.
By year 20, the parallels with our
covid-19 pandemic are minimal.
There is even a generation of
“post-pans”: 20-somethings who
never saw the world as we know it
and who press Kirsten for stories
of smartphones and Uber as if
they were fairy tales. They weren’t
that great, she reassures them.HBO^ MAX/W
ARNE
R^ MED
IAAll the world’s a stage
A fictional pandemic may be a little too close to home, but the lives of a travelling
troupe of actors make for strangely comforting viewing, says Elle HuntKirsten and her close
friend August stick
together to survive“ The episodes in year
zero show a world
unsettlingly like 2020,
with cities emptied
and aircraft grounded”