This show is goddanged incredible
The first couple episodes...eh, I wasn't that impressed. It was a little slow...a bit scattered. And these silly, needless jump-scares kept popping up out of nowhere...and it was too bad, I couldn't figure out why they felt the need to do that.
And then somewhere around episode 3-4, it started getting better. Things started to make sense...we'd gotten to know the characters better and relate to their perspective, their motivations...divergent story lines began to merge, and by the fifth episode, I was pretty sure I was watching one of the best shows I'd ever seen.
Its the characters, I think. Every one of them is a real person, fully fleshed out and wholly relatable.
IMO, this show is a perfect example of the level of charisma a character-driven story can generate. I've stopped after episode 8 to write this...I don't want it to end lol
I genuinely like these characters, this family...and that's what's drawn me in to this show. I care about their journey, their fate, I'm afraid right along with them. Shoot, I'm afraid FOR them.
Its a trip coming to the forums here to see all the people talking about how this show is overrated...one of the first threads I clicked on was, "The writing is so bad!!" and the first few responses being about, "I KNOW" and, "I thought I was the only one!"
"To each his own" and all, but I can't help but wonder how far you guys made it. Because I'm not sure this would be a show for people who didn't have the kind of patience it might take to watch the characters/story unfold the way it does. Because they're intertwined. The story goes hand-in-hand with the character development...its not just a story about a haunted house, its a story about a family, their attempts at coping with the past and how its affected them, how its affected their relationships with each other.
THIS is how its done IMO. Whatever else any story has to offer, if its focused on making it about the characters, first and foremost, the rest doesn't need to be much more than window dressing, really. And still, the window dressing here was...this show is goddang incredible, IMO. Amazing stuff.