The Lost Room

Writers Group was cancelled last night, so I was able to go directly home from work, with only a brief stop at the grocery store for some necessities, and after putting the apartment back together after tropical storm Kaylee, I watched the conclusion to SciFi's miniseries "The Lost Room," which aired last week.

I think they did some really interesting things -- the idea of a series of objects with magical properties randomly appearing or being passed around the country is similar to our idea for the third Storyball (still unfinished), and Peter Krause played a father searching for his daughter very well, his determination to use any means necessary to get her back from the titular room very believable. The filmmakers set up a lot of backstory, and more cabals and consortitums working together and against each other than I was easily able to keep track of, but I was ultimately unsatisfied.

Yes, of course he gets his daughter back (Spoiler, but do you really think a Fanning will die? Not a chance). But do we actually learn what happened? What event in the room created the objects, including the Prime Object (still being somewhat spoiler-free for those who want to see it)? No, we don't. We're left with almost more questions than we had at the beginning, and unlike the cliffhanger ending of last week's BSG, I don't know when, if ever, we'll learn more.

Maybe that's the point. The reason Krause's Joe Miller was able to use the objects so well, to find the Prime Object, wasn't because he had some grand theory he wanted to test, some reality-bending experiment he wanted to prove, but because he had a simple, straightforward will: find his daughter, bring her back. The Legion, the Cabal, the other Object holders -- they all wanted much more. (Except for the guy with the bus ticket. He was pretty simple, and I liked him.)

Anyway, I'm sure SciFi will be rerunning it over the holidays if you missed it. And if you saw it, I look forward to hearing what you think! Here's Entertainment Weekly's review, which, looking over again after seeing the miniseries, I almost entirely agree with. You?