Review by C.J. Bunce
It seems hard to believe it’s been 14 years since we first talked about one-season wonders here at borg. We’re talking about series cut short–that had the potential to have long-running stories, and maybe even five to seven seasons of genre-of the week thrills, laughs, or mysteries because of great storytelling, actors, situations and setting, or all the above. Back then the list included Life, The Riches, Tru Calling, Wonderfalls, Cupid, Eleventh Hour, The Dresden Files, Journeyman, The Lost Room, and The Flash—since then only fans of The Flash sort of got their wish with the WB/CW reboot series bringing back John Wesley Shipp in multiverse storylines. Today our list of series cut short with only a single season of episodes–series we’d love to watch more of–includes The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, Awake with Jason Isaacs, Zen with Rufus Sewell, Almost Human with Karl Urban, Forever with Ioan Gruffudd and Alana De la Garza, Swamp Thing, Archive 81, The Watch, The Imperfects, Willow, The Brothers Sun, Truth Seekers, Quarry, Whiskey Cavalier, Wild Bill with Rob Lowe, Men of a Certain Age, Stumptown with Cobie Smulders, the live-action Resident Evil, the live-action Cowboy Bebop starring John Cho and Mustafa Shakir, The Returned with Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and, of course, the most talked about single season series of them all, Firefly. Like Firefly, the one-season Wu Assassins is a great single-season series that was followed up with a less-than-stellar movie.
In early 2022 Netflix introduced eight episodes of a streaming series that could have grown to become the next supernatural series in the vein of The X-Files, Supernatural, Grimm, or Truth Seekers. And like these other series, it was prematurely cancelled. The series is Dead Places.
Dead Places will probably be the first major series for U.S. viewers that hails from South Africa. But other than the interjections of the Zulu language from time to time, you would think this was filmed in the States. It was reportedly filmed in 50 locations across South Africa, including Cape Town, Johannesburg, the Cradle of Humankind, and Thabazimbi. Just as Grimm utilized Portland, Oregon, and the surrounding region to provide a unique vibe for its tales of myths, legends, and monsters of all sorts of peoples and places, Dead Places pulled African lore for its monster-of-the-week episodes.
Instead of Mulder and Scully, a trio leads this team of investigators. Successful paranormal writer Will Stone (Anthony Oseyemi) returns to Johannesburg from the UK to investigate a series of supernatural occurrences for a new book. His publisher hires him a fired ex-cop named Joe as his driver and bodyguard (Rea Rangaka) and he brings in the resarch skills of social media vlogger Kelly (Shamilla Miller). Will is a straight arrow, serious about his understandings of the occult, he doesn’t have much time for games when it comes to facing mystical and spiritual pursuits head-on (think Roman in SurrealEstate or Artie in Warehouse 13). Joe is usually a jerk. He’s separated from his wife (his fault, no doubt), but trying to maintain a relationship with his young daughter. Fortunately Joe leaves his laziness and bad attitude at the door when ghosts or monsters threaten Will or Kelly. Kelly is the practical member of the team, and we learn that behind her positive attitude and eagerness to solve cases, she was the victim of a violent crime when she was young.
The trio have an instant chemistry, a chemistry much better than we saw from David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson in that first season of The X-Files, which is why the series seems so likely to have continued for years with monster-of-the-week episodes. It also had a similarly low budget, but mde the best of it. The scripts were so tight and the plots interesting that a big production didn’t matter. And the makeups were as good as any on The X-Files or Grimm. One episode introduced viewers to a being that trapped people inside a glowing tree. Another saw a woman hire Will to investigate a murder–her murder. A haunted house is the setting for another episode. An eerie lake seems to draw deaths to it in another. Each complete mythology and mystery are contained in single episodes, the kind of series greatly missed in television today. Dead Places was on track to be the next The X-Files or Grimm.
The series contained one key season-long arc. Will’s backstory included a missing sister from his youth. The eighth and final episode circles back to this event. It’s the only episode not consistent with the rest of the series, which kept the mysteries outside of the stuff of true crime. The real-life violence of the elements behind Kelly’s attack and Will’s sisters disappearance don’t jibe with the more fun mystical plots of earlier episodes. It’s like the series got its cancellation midseason and the writers decided to tie up the story in that final episode to be able to sell the show. The finale is well done, but The X-Files took years to resolve the similar arc involving Mulder and his missing sister. It’s too bad a hundred tales of folklore and legends weren’t available for this trio of investigators, and that the big mystery didn’t end up with more supernatural events involved. And why don’t we have better access to genre TV from South Africa? This production was as good as any series we watched from the U.S. or UK last year.
Dead Places, even if you only watch the first seven episodes–or watch the finale, too– is worth your time. Should we look at this series and the other series cut short any differently than series built with a single season story that ties up all the threads (usually tagged as “limited” or “mini-series”) like The Queen’s Gambit, Station Eleven, The Outsider, Culprits, Mrs. Davis, The Offer, The Last Tycoon, Picnic at Hanging Rock, and Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? Short-sighted studio execs seem to be to blame for these great stories with no end. What would more episodes of a single-season show like The Prisoner have included? Battlestar Galactica was one season, but look what its reboot was able to do. Going back in time we could add to our list of shows we wish we had more episodes from–shows like Kolchak: The Night Stalker, The Cape, UNSUB, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. with Bruce Campbell, even Square Pegs with Sara Jessica Parker and Merritt Butrick. Can you ever get enough Bruce Lee, or did that one season of The Green Hornet tell the whole story? Is the same true for the tie-in TV series for Planet of the Apes, Blade, Alien Nation, Tron, Shaft, Limitless, Coma, and Logan’s Run? All emerged from movies into solo season shows, too.
As happened with The Flash, you never know when a studio might take a second look at an old, canceled property. Until then there are plenty of some of the best TV series available–if you’re willing to watch knowing no end will be coming. Check your streaming services or carrier for all of these shows. Although originally produced by Netflix, Dead Places does not appear to be on Netflix in the States, but it is available via the free channel Tubi and Prime Video.
