Is anybody watching the Amazon show, Undone?
No, really...is anybody? It’s really good.
The show features rotoscoped animation (a la A Scanner Darkly) and stars Rosa Salazar as a troubled young woman who discovers the power to time-travel—and uses it, with great difficulty, to investigate and repair various family traumas and tragedies. The ever-lovable Bob Odenkirk plays her dad.
The episodes are a half hour (most seem to be under 25 minutes) and there are 16 in all. There was a long wait between season 1 (September 2019) and 2 (April 2022), partly due to COVID, partly (I presume) due to the meticulous animation process.
Season 2 ended on a resolved note and it seems like this may be the end for the show.
The music by Irish composer Amie Doherty is really good. It’s a chamber-sized score emphasizing piano and strings, with a lot of arpeggios for solo violin that feels like the main character playing “time like a fiddle.” (Or maybe time is playing her.)
A lot of it feels laudably Herrmannesque—but not the crashing sturm–und–drang Herrmannesque, more like the eerie, mystical Herrmann of Twilight Zone or Fahrenheit 451. Maybe it’s all those minor and augmented arpeggios.
The short (25 min.) soundtrack album from season 1 seems to be streaming only.
The show is really a marvel of tone, heart and imagination. Season two, for me, didn’t pack the same punch as season one; a common problem in television—once most of the mythology was unpacked in the first season, there wasn’t a lot of room to explore in the next. This is another reason that a third season feels unlikely to me.
My compliments to the creators for a terrific show!