Photo: HBO Max HBO Max’s Station Eleven threads a very small needle. It is a series about a global pandemic, produced both before and during an actual pandemic. Although its first and third episodes were shot in early 2020 before COVID-19, showrunner Patrick Somerville knew the series would need to be calibrated for an audience intimately familiar with the idea of a viral pandemic.
It was really the middle that wasn’t completely clear. We had the scripts for one and two, and we had the script for episode three, even though that one is mercurial and slippery. But it was really a question of how to get to that hug. It’s just good TV. We needed to make an episode about Jeevan in Chicago on the day it happened. In the novel, he talks to his friend Hua on the phone, but it’s largely in his head. And you can’t do that on TV. You need someone to talk to.But Frank is the destination. It’s very Adventures in Babysitting — there’s the Lake Point Tower that we just need to get to. That’s good TV, too. He’s got a place to go; he’s got early information.
There’s a paradox, too. When I’m in a bad mood and I get home from work, there’s a perfect equilibrium that my wife has created in the two hours since she got home from work. Kids sitting at the table, gently talking, and then I come home and am like [angry voice], “What!” And instantly, they’re fighting. I’m the problem in that situation! You can’t leave, though.
Kirsten and Jeevan feel like one significant adaptation choice for the series. Arthur’s son Tyler and the Museum of Civilization feels like the other one. In the book, the Prophet — who we eventually learn is Tyler — is explicitly malicious, while the museum is a more neutral entity. The TV series shifts that emphasis, so that Tyler is much more sympathetic, and the entire worldview of the museum is cast as a threat.
I’m curious about timelines in storytelling. It’s been frustrating to see so much TV in the last couple of years fall into this crutch of hopping around in the timeline of a story, and I was worried when I realized Station Eleven relied so heavily on that. But here, that back-and-forth rhythm works so well.
I came from The Leftovers; David Eisenberg, our editor, came from Watchmen. We’re both Damon Lindelof–trained storytellers. We’ve both seen with intentionality how this can be a very powerful thing. It’s scripted that Mackenzie is having an emotional meltdown while trying to play Hamlet, while we see young Kirsten getting texts. But if episode two were our opener, and then it was a flashback —It’s not a flashback! It’s two competing, simultaneous nows.
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