EatTheCorn covered extensively the pre-production of Chris Carter’s new project, the pilot for “The After” for Amazon Studios. After shooting in October-November, the pilot was released on February 6 along with 9 other pilots in Amazon Original Series’ “pilot season”.

Eight strangers are thrown together by mysterious forces and must help each other survive in a violent world that defies explanation.

The 55-min pilot can be viewed at Amazon.com (for free, and from anywhere in the world, with a simple Amazon account). The television landscape is changing radically, with new distribution means come also new evaluation methods: viewer feedback will be taken into account on whether “The After“, or any of the 10 pilots released, will be ordered to full series!

This is Carter’s first production to see the light of the public since 2008, and 2002 before that! Carter is writing and directing; it is his first pilot that he is also directing. A “Spedis Owl” (with the voice-over “Who Made This?”) production logo has replaced the Ten Thirteen logo.

As for the content itself… admittedly, colour me underwhelmed. Characters, dialogue, plot, directing and general visuals are what one would expect from a generic Hollywood production. The whole thing feels a lot like the profusion of series that tried and still try to replicate Lost‘s popular success (Invasion, FlashForward, The Event, Revolution…), which is ironic given how Lost at times felt like it had taken inspiration from The X-Files; all these are shows that do not attract me in the least. Many of Carter’s trademark signs — concentration on few tortured and idealistic characters, dark photography, introspective ambiance — are absent here, nevertheless less important trademark signs abound (the ouroboros above, 1013, 1121…). Despite all this, by its very nature of serialized mystery storytelling, this is a concept that would need more time to be developed, what we have now are merely random glimpses of the whole mystery and starting points for future character arcs. Promotional material since 2012 have described “The After” as a 13 episode project.

Stay tuned for another exciting “The After“-related development for EatTheCorn!