Three Torches (Out of Five)
The good news is that the new fantasy webseries Riese has surprisingly impressive production values. Better still, it’s an example of “steampunk,” a relatively rare fantasy genre usually set in an early-industrial era where steam-power might still be used.
The bad news is that the producers don’t understand, in a very basic way, how the pacing of a web series is different from that of a television series.
Face it: we absorb information differently online. We’re more intent on the screen, so we take things in more quickly, finding visual cues on the screen in a way we don’t when we’re watching television. Web series episodes are almost always only five to ten minutes long, but they can cram in much more plot than five minutes of a TV show, because we, sophisticated media consumers that we are, can take it all in that much faster.
Riese would do well to learn this fact, because while it has the grinding, driving music of a face-paced action web series, it doesn’t have the pace of one. There are simply too many long, thoughtful pauses, too many too-long establishing shots, and too many scenes of characters simply walking from here to there.
(Part of me wonders if this whole web series wasn’t conceived of as a traditional TV series, and this web series aspect is part of some pitch geared toward getting an established network like SyFy to bite. The actors are definitely the real deal. Patrick Gilmore appears on Stargate Universe, and Ben Cotton appeared on Stargate Atlantis. Christine Chatelain, who plays Riese, has credits that include SyFy’s Sanctuary.)
All this said, the first three episodes that have been released so far are visually impressive, and it’s especially nice that there are female characters driving the plot (on both the good and the bad end of things).
Meanwhile, the set-up itself is definitely intriguing. The industrial age setting alone is something we definitely haven’t seen much of before.
The series opens on a injured woman, Riese, running wildly through the woods — being chased by a wolf, it seems. But the wolves that are seeking her blood are actually of the far more dangerous “human” kind. She’s being pursued by a group of religious fanatics called The Sect that have somehow taken over the land.
Why are they so determined to get Riese — and what exactly are their nefarious plans for this dying world? There are tantalizing hints of what’s to come in the first three episodes. The next episode will be released on December 14th.
In the meantime, the first three episodes follow:
