HBO’s ‘Room 104’ offers new look at anthology format REVIEW
Anthology television series can either be many different stories with one distinct tone featured in each episode of season (“Twilight Zone,” “Are You Afraid of the Dark?”) or a different story using a set tone that covers one full year of programming (“American Crime,” “American Horror Story”). While the structure may vary and the players change, anthology series tend to take on a distinct tone throughout their run.
That was before “Room 104” came along.
The new HBO anthology series has a familiar structure when it comes to different players and stories in each episode, but it tosses out the conventional approach of a similar tone for the run of the series. One week the tale could be deeply dramatic, the next a full comedy. This is the work of Mark and Jay Duplass, who bring their purposely rebellious approach to the creative process to make “Room 104” an original look at a very familiar genre.
“Room 104,” which airs at 10:30 p.m. Fridays, is a widely different collection of stories linked together by a single location. Each tale unfolds in a hotel room that changes only slightly to reflect the time period in which the story unfolds.
That cast includes Hugo Armstrong, Davie-Blue, Melonie Diaz, Jay Duplass, Philip Baker Hall, Sarah Hay, Poorna Jagannathan and others.
The brothers offer the same slightly slanted look at life they have used in more than 20 movies including “Jeff, Who Lives at Home” and “Tangerine.” Their approach is to take what’s considered to be mundane and offer a different perspective to induce fear, laughter or tears. Even when the series appears to be following a traditional anthology approach, the unique vision of the brothers trumps anything that would be standard.
In the sixth episode, “Voyeurs,” for instance, written and directed by Dayna Hanson, the story is told through a macabre dance of life. In the third episode, “The Knockadoo,” under the veil of a tale of spiritual activities by a cult priest (Orlando Jones), the script by Carson Mell slowly begins to reflect the deep psychological problems a woman (Sameerah Lugmaan-Harris) is harboring while seeking salvation.
The idea of setting the series in a single hotel room is not unique, as David Lynch’s “Hotel Room” was broadcast by HBO in 1993. Where the Duplass brothers bring their original vision to the project is in the way they don’t feel obligated to feed an audience every bit of information but expect viewers to be smart enough (or at least curious enough) to take the very compelling morsels and create their own final picture.