"The Signal."
The German limited series on Netflix gets the Two Episode Test and I get put into a quandary.
There’s not a lot of science that goes into picking contenders for the Two Episode Test. Sometimes it’s complicated — “3 Body Problem” on Netflix would be a pretty terrible choice mostly because it was made to be an epic and it comes freighted with the weight of ambition since it’s the “Game Of Thrones” creators who are trying to turn hardcore Chinese sci-fi into an international sensation.
Two episodes? Nah. That’s a disservice.
Other times the simplicity is hard to resist — the time honored “yeah that looks good,” where something clicks a bunch of boxes in under a minute and you (or me) switch off the preview and just get to watching.
And so it was with “The Signal” — a series that Netflix (never one to be trusted with rankings and ratings) claimed at the time I watched to be one of their most popular on the platform (it came out earlier this month).
My immediate thought was, “Is a series in German one of the Top 5 shows on Netflix right now?” or is that just in my algorithm where I’ll watch anything with subtitles? But it took place on the International Space Station and seemed mysteriously quirky in the quick snippets — so off I went. All in.
No, this is not where I say I’ve made a mistake.
No, this is not where I say it’s a brilliant find.
This is where I say that over the course of a few busy days watching different series I finally watched the second episode and was fueled with enough material to write this post (yay) and then dug a little deeper into the origin and found that there are only four episodes (not yay).
Hey look, people, I’m not here to do math. I assumed at minimum eight episodes and yes, I know what happens when you assume.
You get a free post instead of a paid one?
Yes, precisely.
So, no, a Two Episode Test on a show with four episodes is not ideal. My bad. Hand raised. Mea culpas tossed into the crowd.
That said, I really quite enjoyed the first two episodes.
Before knowing there were only four I wouldn’t say “The Signal” was an “easy” pass of the test — it’s intriguing and complicated and I’m always going to be interested in how international series approach the art of storytelling, but there were a few scenes in Ep. 2 where I thought, hmmm, that’s going to complicate things and in that moment I was sure there were at least six, perhaps even eight, more episodes left to complete that challenge.
Whoops.
But after the first two — yeah, more please. That’s a passing grade for sure.
And now with only two left?
Uh, is there a miracle finish in this limited series?
Because I can’t fathom, halfway through it, how two more episodes at the pace of the first two are going to solve any of the issue at hand.
But, that’s why we watch.
And while I know there’s not a ton of enthusiasm for a “let’s see this show wriggle out of the contortions it has put itself into,” I’m afraid that’s where we are (or I am, for those of you not willing to take on this challenge). And yet, those first two episodes held a ton of potential and, again, I really liked them.
So let’s get to the good parts.
“The Signal” puts two German scientists (or, perhaps, pseudo-scientists?) onto the International Space Station where they are joined by one American and what passes for one Russian astronaut, which seems a little lean as far as a workforce goes but let’s not get stuck there.
The two in question are Paula (Peri Baumeister) and Hadi (Hadi Khanjanpour), who are part of a research team from a billionaire in India named Benisha Mudhi (Sheeba Chaddha), and her all-powerful, perhaps mysterious company that believes a lot in “visions” — think Elon Musk letting a bunch of his dubious Core of Deep Thinkers go up in Space X or something.
I think that’s close?
Now, much of this premise is not the actual attraction of “The Signal” — it’s the nuanced, well-developed story of the husband and hearing-impaired daughter that Paula left behind to go into space. They are an engaging (and well-acted) gravitation pull to the story which cements “The Signal” in real emotions.
Husband Sven, (Florian David Fitz — also one of the main writers and creators) is a loving father to Carlotta, aka “Charlie” (Yuna Bennett) whose dual Cochlear implants are essential to her hearing and understanding the world. It’s also a smart premise if the sending and receiving of signals is (even metaphorically), a part of the plot.
Fitz has a sympathetic hang-dog face that makes you feel the weariness of the situation as he and Charlie — “Team Earth” — face as they nervously await the re-entry of Paula and Hadi from space. Bennett is wonderful — it’s rare that a child actor can convey this much emotion and believability.
“The Signal” is deft and agile at making it clear that if you’re a husband/father and daughter on the ground and your wife/mother is in space, what you’ve been through is terrifying — will there be an accident on launch; will there be problems in space; the danger of re-entry to Earth’s atmosphere, etc.
More impressively, “The Signal” immediately puts two big twists into the story — one that I’ll leave you to discover and the other being that in space Paula detects the sound of a voice, “Hello?, Hello?” coming from deep space.
For a show set at least partly in space, the first very slight red flag was that the story on the ground — Sven and Charlie, waiting for Paula’s return — was more interesting than what was happening on the ISS, mostly because conceptually a lot of what takes place in the space is less developed.
But credit “The Signal” for not forgetting to ramp up the small mysteries — as when, on return to Earth, Paula’s job in the capsule is to deploy the parachutes and she’s strangely, dangerously disinterested in the assignment as the capsule plunges and Sven and Charlie watch live on television.
The twist I won’t reveal is even better, but now that there are only two remaining episodes I’m exploring the physics in my head on how they are going to stick this landing.
I can’t say I’m optimistic.
There’s a lot of ground to cover and the strength of the first two episodes was primarily in the well-drawn relationship of Sven and his daughter Charlie on “Team Earth.” The allure, the smart touches and the strong writing — it all happens with this human engagement.
But as the show ramps up more mysteries, the shortness of the season can’t be ignored. Maybe the famed German precision of things will rise up and “The Signal” will stick the landing? Maybe, but this is art, not manufacturing.
And now I wonder, having set up a scenario where I went looking for a show and found that it was intriguing — while also finding a potentially troublesome flaw — if anyone will take the journey with me? Is Major Tim to be left floating in the ether discussing to himself the last two episodes?
I've only managed to slog my way through about the first half of the first episode of 3 Body Problem, and I'm not feeling much desire to flounder back in. I'll have to check if Netflix has pushed The Signal my way. Netflix really wants me to watch The Gentlemen, and now that I know Giancarlo Esposito is in it, I'm more likely to give it a look
I wasn't sure about this but now I'm in!