Anyone But Me is the best web series I’ve ever seen. If it gets very much better, it might just be the best serialized film work in any medium! No exaggeration.
Episode 3 – Countdown
I am SO in love with Rachel Hip-Flores’ voice. It’s low, a little coarse, a little sexy, and a little shy – and her voice-overs are gorgeous! She even avoids sounding like an impersonal movie trailer person. It simply sounds honest and sincere. And once again, the lack of music makes it all that much more real.
The cuts between Vivian and Aster were perfect. The trying-to-hard aunt is funny without having to resort to exaggeration or silliness, and Vivian reacts to her almost exactly like I would!
The dialogue in this episode was absolutely wonderful. Some shows try to show everything, tell everything, all via long streams of pointless speech (I’m looking at you, L Word!). Others (action-oriented shows) try to minimize dialogue, and leave the audience guessing – until it all comes out at the end in one big, squishy stream! Anyone But Me avoids all this, using just the right number of words to tell us what’s happening, all without bogging down. Example: after the bike ride, she says, “Thanks for the side tour of the ‘burbs,” and we know exactly what happened (city girl’s a bit bored with the small town!) A lesser show would have shown him pointing out the sights, shown her bored reaction, etc., etc.
Again: the transition from Vivian calling Aster, to the ‘much later’ shot. The traffic noise is quiet, there’s a faint sound of crickets, she’s staring up into space. It just felt so much cleaner than the typical ‘2 hours later’ title card combined with enough ‘waiting’ shots to bore the audience.
And Aster’s coming to get Vivian was wonderfully cute!
Episode 4 – Vivian and Aster
A simple, simple episode – but just what Vivian and Aster’s relationship needed. It was sweet without being syrupy, beautiful without being L Word-style soft-core porny. Why couldn’t South of Nowhere ever do something like this?
New character Brick (I guess that’s how you would spell it!) was introduced with the show’s characteristic grace. Two or three lines were all that we needed.
The closet joke was perfectly understated. Funniest thing I’ve heard all day!
The plot was believable – amazing, considering that it was about stress on a relationship. Fictional relationships tend to be a rather dramatic. Some (soap-opera style) make all relationships seem perfect – until the big event – cheating, etc. – that drives them apart! Others (more realistic) spend forever building up to something until the final straw breaks things apart. Here there’s nothing wrong but a little distance, and a tiny bit of insensitive thinking on Aster’s part. Vivian reacts – she doesn’t overreact unrealistically, she just reacts. She’s worried about losing Vivian, wanted to spend time with her, and Vivian didn’t catch the feeling. And nobody did anything wrong – it was all a little misunderstanding. They had a small disagreement, and made up (for now, anyway). That’s not something often portrayed in a fictional relationship. Simply wonderful!
The ending song was perfect, too. And the ‘Strike TV’ lighting sound even fit in with the mood and music.
You really get it. Your response and analysis of these episodes both lucid and heartfelt — gratifying to me. Thanks so much for your support of Anyone But Me.