What to watch: Stephen King's ‘The Institute' – Binge it or skip it?

The Citizen

4 days ago

Although it has a slow start, by episode three, the plot and web of intrigue begin to reveal themselves.
There are some great shows to look forward to this weekend as couch time temporarily fills in for droll time at the office. It's winter, it's cold and cuddles on binge are on the menu.
Stephen King books are always a fun read; his horrors are as scary as they come and short stories like The Shawshank Redemption are an exercise in artistic depth to the absolute. However, sometimes the feature film versions of his work do not translate so well onto screen. Carrie was an excellent film and a pacesetter of its genre, Pet Cemetery less so. Shawshank Redemption, absolute genius in cinema. Now, there's a series on Showmax called The Institute, based on another of King's works.
The Institute has had mixed reviews that range from worse than watching paint dry through to applause for its entertainment value. But really, what do these mean when all you want to know is whether it's worth your time, or whether you should flick off.
Don't do the latter. Because even though the show starts off a bit higgledy piggeldy, by episode three, the plot and web of intrigue begin to reveal themselves and unravel at the same time.
It's a bit of a slow start
We meet Tim Jamieson, a cop who is somewhat down on his luck and on his way to New York to work as a security guard. But after giving up his seat to someone else on an overbooked flight, he elects to hitchhike to his destination instead. During his journey, he passes through a one-horse town and sees an ad for a night patrol job at the local police station. Applies. Gets the job. And just like that, he's paused in the small town and slowly befriends the locals.
Typically for a King story, there are a host of rather strange sideshow characters in the show. Tim befriends a hobo, Annie, who lives in a tent and prophesies strange things, until she's found dead. Stackhouse, we will get to him later again, is the eerily and brilliantly cast head of security at The Institute, set just out of town, signposted as a Biosecurity Research Complex.
Secret experiments on kids
It is anything but. The small town of Du Pray is home to a secret organisation that identifies young children for their psychic abilities, kidnaps them at an early life stage and submits them to a raft of cruel tests and training. The objective is ostensibly to protect humanity's future to eventually be able to predict instances or segues of conflict before the arise.
On the flipside of Tim's narrative, Luke Ellis is drifting in and out of sleep, and the next, he's jolted awake with chemical spray in his face. Then, he wakes up later with a bit of relief. He's still in his bedroom. That is, until the room starts feeling unfamiliar and as he steps out, not into the familiar passage of his childhood home, it's been replaced by a corridor filled with other kids who look just as confused, and just as kidnapped.
Enter Ms. Sigsby, The Institute's prim and polished head honcho. She tells Luke that all this – his abduction, this testing, this psychological torture – is for a greater good. Make it through, pass the final test, and you're heading home. As a bonus, his memory will be wiped clean. No harm, no foul.
Hero doesn't drink the Kool Aid
Luke, though, didn't drink the Kool Aid. While the kids endure shock therapy and psychological manipulation, Luke and his unlikely allies lay the groundwork for a prison break that may be their only shot at survival.
The Institute is run by a collective of somewhat shady operatives and medical staff. At the head of the snake is Stackhouse, brilliantly played by Julian Richings and Ms Sigsby, played by Julia Louise Parker is as cool as they come. The young cast is led by Joe Freeman as Luke Ellis. Keeping the narrative alive outside of the goings on at The Institute is Tim, well played by Ben Barnes.
The series is a slow burn of dread and as things unravel, so does the plot structure, too. It feels like the show makers were too much in a hurry to finish off the show. In his books, Stephen King is the master of pace. On screen, The Institute is a bit like a mother-in-law driving. Slow start but accelerating and decelerating in a few of the wrong places. It never answers questions fully and makes viewers cross their fingers for a season two to tie up loose ends.
Having said that, The Institute is really entertaining. It has flaws, but they are not gaps wide enough to spoil anyone's appetite to find out what happens next. And a lot happens in the show. It's well worth a weekend binge.