


A former child actor, Kirsten is haunted by both the profound losses she’s experienced in her past and the fear she has of losing anyone else she holds dear. Mackenzie Davis, in particular, shines as Kirsten Raymond, a ruthless but loving survivor who has spent most of her post-pandemic life with the Traveling Symphony. While that kind of tonal balance is a difficult one to strike, Station Eleven succeeds in large part to the pitch-perfect work of its cast. Like The Leftovers did in its second and third seasons, Station Eleven also presents viewers with a playful and uniquely weird take on an undeniably tragic situation. Both shows buck traditional narrative structure at nearly every turn, not only jumping between perspectives but often dedicating entire episodes to the backstories and emotional journeys of single characters. It’s his work on that show that feels the closest to what he’s done with Station Eleven.
#WILL STATION 11 HAVE A SEASON 2 SERIES#
The limited series was adapted by showrunner Patrick Somerville, a writer whose previous credits include episodes of HBO’s The Leftovers. Matilda Lawler and Himesh Patel in HBO Max’s Station Eleven.

Altogether, they help make the series an enjoyable and entertaining ride, even when it attempts - often successfully - to pull at your heartstrings and make you reach for the closest box of tissues. Whether it be a character reciting Bill Pullman’s speech from Independence Day or one survivor putting on a clown wig they find in an abandoned home, Station Eleven is filled with moments of humor and levity. Consequently, the series finds the room to be whimsical, joyful, and delightfully weird over the course of its 10 episodes. While the series does contain sequences showing overworked hospital workers, overcrowded emergency rooms, and people coughing underneath surgical masks, Station Eleven uses those moments sparingly and rarely returns to them after its opening episode. If that makes it sound like Station Eleven is depressing or difficult to get through, you’ll probably be surprised to learn that’s not the case at all.

Mackenzie Davis as Kirsten Raymond in HBO Max’s Station Eleven. When the troupe becomes the target of a mysterious cult leader known as The Prophet (Daniel Zovatto), Station Eleven’s characters are finally forced to reckon with everything that’s happened to them since the world ended. What follows is a story told across multiple timelines - some that take place before the world was hit by the pandemic, others that are set 1, 2, and even 20 years after it - that ultimately investigates the ways in which trauma lingers within us and how art, whether it be Hamlet, King Lear, or a comic book, can help us process our pain.Īt the center of its story is the Traveling Symphony, a nomadic theater troupe that traverses the show’s post-apocalyptic landscape performing Shakespeare plays in every human settlement its members come across. When tragedy strikes, the series turns its focus on its cast of disparate characters, many of whom have some kind of connection to the production at the start of the series. Station Eleven’s story is a familiar one: When the world is rocked by a devastating pandemic that kills most of the planet’s human population, the few survivors must learn to live in a society that’s only a shadow of what it once was.ĭespite that, Station Eleven begins, in all places, in a Chicago theater during a production of King Lear.
