DAVID BIANCULLI

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ROOM 104
July 28, 2017  | By David Bianculli

HBO, 11:30 p.m. ET

 

SERIES PREMIERE: Mark and Jay Duplass get another HBO series, and this one is an anthology format, with different casts and stories each week all taking place in the same motel room. In tonight’s opener, Melonie Diaz arrives at Room 104 to babysit a young boy (played by Ethan Kent, pictured with Diaz) as the father goes out for the evening. It’s an episode that plays to the scary and perhaps even the supernatural, with imaginary characters who may or may not be real. Other episodes screened for critics include one about a young wannabe author who phones his less tech-savvy mother in hopes of getting her to email him a copy of his unpublished manuscript, and another in which two women (Dendrie Taylor, Sarah Hay) share the room, and perhaps a life, entirely in interpretative dance. Those three episodes alone attest to the range of this series – one’s heavy on action, another is a half-hour monologue, and the third is a silent, surreal dance duet. But while the episodes and the series are interesting as curiosities, they’re not completely compelling – which explains HBO’s late-night scheduling placement. For a full review, see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower.

 
 
 
 
 
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