Netflix What/If

[pete lashmar]

Created by Mile Kelley (Revenge, Swingtown) and starring Renée Zellweger.

I've now finished the season (10 episodes) and absolutely loved it. It's a very difficult series to describe without giving away spoilers but it has all the old soap tropes with lots of great characters and a good few differing plot points, but Renée Zellweger plays a very wealthy woman who likes to play with people's lives.

Apparently this is a new anthology series, so season 2 may well be a completely different story with the same actors.

I didn't find it as gripping as Revenge was when it first started but it's well worth a watch for soapy, OTT, drama addicts.

 

[Alexis]

So I finished it all tonight. My post does contain spoilers so if you haven't watched it all ya may wanna scroll on by.

There was a lot that was straight from REVENGE if we're gonna be really honest. It was Victoria and Emily play cat and mouse redux. What I found disappointing was that they didn't go further in the dynamic that Anne had with her mother. From what we saw which was only hinted at there was just an absolute mountain of drama that could have been mined from that. I also thought that Anne's big reveal to Lisa just wasn't as astonishingly awful as the show seemed to imply. In fact it would have been more awful if that reveal was just a manipulative lie, like when she pretended she was sick in the motel room in Louisiana. I needed to know more, otherwise Anne just isn't that complex a character and is actually just a basket case. There needed to be more to her story than I got knocked up by a guy who fondled another girl at prom. It wasn't as psychological/noir as it thought it was.

Saying that, I mostly enjoyed it.

It's funny, we complain that shows like REVENGE suffered from having to stretch out a story to 22 episodes. With WHAT/IF, I felt the story suffered from being only 10 episodes. To me there was story left untold, or that felt condensed.
I guess you just cant please a soap fan. No matter what you do.

 

[Willie Oleson]

I liked it better than the REVENGE world. I'm still thinking about it and I want to back to Anne's fabulous apartment (hello, NuDynasty, watch and learn).
I loved the Big Pharma corporate scheme, I had no idea until the characters realized what was going on.
Personally I could have done without Anne's background story, I can enjoy villains who are wicked just because. There doesn't always have to be a reason for everything.
That's also why - unlike you, Alexis - I'm glad they avoided all the mother-daughter melodrama.

Apart from Sean's history, they didn't intertwine the sub-plots (the gays, Angela & Todd) with the main plot - which is perfectly fine for a soap series with 25+ episode seasons, but a mini-series needs more focus.
Sometimes I had to remind myself how they were related to Lisa (the only reason why they got storylines in the first place).

 

[Willie Oleson]

Oh, and the British villain was so over the top, he looked as if he had just walked out of a Charles Dickens novel!

 

[Alexis]

I liked it better than the REVENGE world.

The reason I didn't, I think is that the WHAT/IF world just felt so separate. Like you said the characters stories didn't really intertwine or overlap that much. That was what was so amazing about REVENGE. And I needed to know what made Anne tick, why would use her daughter as an escape route, why would she torment her so? I needed reason for that, otherwise she's just an annoying bitch I want to slap. Not one I want to watch.

 

[Alexis]

Angela and the whackjob doctor just felt like an exaggerated plot from Central Park West to me. However it was nice to see Justin Walker from Brothers & Sisters not be a nice guy. Also it's kind of strange that he was Emily from Revenge's boyfriend on Brothers & Sisters. It's all so incestuous.

 

[Willie Oleson]

otherwise she's just an annoying bitch I want to slap

Interesting, that's exactly how I felt about anoter certain soap character.

Hmm, what was her name again?

 

[Alexis]

Interesting, that's exactly how I felt about anoter certain soap character.

Hmm, what was her name again?

And yet I was always fascinated by her, because of her backstory, because I knew what made her tick. I could understand her logic even if I didn't agree with it. I'm not sure I understood Anne Montgomery's at all. Nothing she was doing made sense no matter how I looked at it. She was just tormenting people. In order for what? To be super mega huge rich? But she already had that? To get away from her criminal mastermind boss? She could have done that on her own? To stop the discovery for a possible cure for cancer because she wants to make the daughter she gave away be a non trusting cold hard bitch? She made some terrible decisions in life and so now she is going to ruin her daughters life to teach how to be strong? Ohhh…. f**k YOU Anne.
There was a lot of old nonsense in the plot. It just wasn't as clever as it was trying to be. REVENGE's first season trounces it.

 

[Willie Oleson]

She was just tormenting people. In order for what?

Because she thought she was better than everyone else, because she thought they deserved it? She was despicable and I loved it.

REVENGE's first season trounces it.

I couldn't stand the actress who played Victoria.

 

[pete lashmar]

How does everyone feel about season 2 being a completely new story with the same cast? I'm hoping that Sean gets a few man on man scenes.

Also...I still don't understand the name of the show...I mean...What/If....?

 

[Willie Oleson]

How does everyone feel about season 2 being a completely new story with the same cast?

So..that would make Renée Zellweger the "Jessica Lange" of What/If !
Maybe I'll grow to like them as much as the cast of AHS.

p.s. I'd love to see SWINGTOWN but the DVD is outrageously expensive.