On Demand Weekly keeps you up to date on all the latest Web Series.
Tom Hanks' ELECTRIC CITY
By Kate Asche Wilson
Web series are the future. Now before you run to your couch to hide under a pile of TV guides and regrets from the 90’s hear me out. How often have you become completely obsessed with a TV show only to miss an episode one fateful week? It’s okay you can just watch it online! Oh wait no you can’t. This specific network doesn’t upload their shows for a week and a half and now your forced to buy a pointless Hulu subscription or be spoiled mercilessly by Perez Hilton.
With a web series this is not a problem. It also happens to be completely free, you can watch it anywhere on a computer, iPhone, or any type of smart object that will take over the world someday, and there are absolutely no commercials. Wait is this heaven?
Web series are proving themselves to be just as well done as any regular series and with websites such as Yahoo! taking the reigns on Internet domination they are becoming increasingly more popular. Not only has Yahoo! Screen aired my baby “Burning Love”, but most recently it premiered Tom Hanks incredible post apocalyptic animated series “Electric City”.
“Electric City” is so good that I am actually shocked that the fandoms of the interwebs have not taken it into their arms, and showered it with intense and slightly suffocating love. It deserves to be seen, and I demand that you go watch it on Yahoo! Screen now.
If your still here you obviously need a little more convincing. Don’t worry by the end of this you’ll be more obsessed with it than I am.
Tom Hanks. This man was Robert Langdon. This man was Captain Miller. This man was Forrest Gump. This man created “Electric City” on an Olivetti Lettera 22. Like a boss.
Now before we go any further I must warn you that “Electric City” is animated. I didn’t want you to go into it expecting Tom Hanks in a fedora film noir-ing all over a post-apocalyptic set. No it’s animated, and it’s better that way. I could see how it could have been made into a live action drama with ten episodes at an hour each, but who has the time?
Each episode of “Electric City” is around five minutes long and there are twenty episodes in the series. Some people might think that it wouldn’t be as effective being short and animated. It’s actually more.
“Electric City.” Credit: Images courtesy Yahoo!
We open episode one of “Electric City” with Tom Hanks sultry voice saying, “Paradise has many names”. That certainly applies here if one of those names is bat shit crazy utopia from hell, and if reading Brave New World didn’t quench your thirst for dystopic futures than this certainty will. Taken place after a catastrophic apocalypse, “Electric City” follows Cleveland Carr (Tom Hanks), a hired hand that works for the illustrious Ruth Orwell (Holland Taylor). Ruth is a survivor of the apocalypse and belongs to a secret organization of matriarchs called the knitting society. The knitting society is a group that has vowed to keep the city “safe” by any means necessary. There’s alcoholism, spousal abuse, crime, vengeance, and murder, and that’s only in the first five-minutes.
Outside the city walls we have the revolutionaries led by Dr. Loman (David Kaye) who are infiltrating the city with unfiltered wireless communicators called wave units. With the wave units they seek to communicate with the people of the city to gain their loyalty and trust. Their opposition is the peacekeepers of the city, Commander Welles (Georg Stanford Brown) and the AMP (Allied Municipal Patrol). The AMP dutifully provides the illusion of security in the city while the knitting society holds the real power.
The series follows Carr on his murderous orders from Ruth and the knitting society while simultaneously showing the rebels hiding in Sah’s Noodle Shop, creating a revolution. This juxtaposition of plots comes together in a truly spectacular finale that has everyone wondering, whose side are you truly on?
This post apocalyptic film noir series is filled with rich character development. It makes you feel for every one of its characters including the villains. It is a strong vibrant world with a fast pace, and a twist at every corner. I hope that Yahoo! Screen continues to produce such quality web series because I have legitimately been blown away with the caliber of cinema it has produced. It has ranged from hilariously inappropriate satires to thought provoking science fiction. I have incredibly varied tastes, and it’s almost as if Yahoo! Screen can read my mind. It would be criminal if they didn’t come out with a second season of “Electric City”. It’s way to good to leave it hanging like that! I MUST KNOW WHAT HAPPENS.
Personal Side Note: I absolutely adored the “Electric City” musical score. THE MUSICAL SCORE. In a web series! Are you serious “Electric City”? You’re killing me here! I just want to thank you for getting the bad taste of REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA out of my mouth. That horror cannot be unseen, and I am glad for a series like “Electric City” that can make me believe in this genre again.
When you embark on watching “Electric City” I suggest that you watch it all the way through. I couldn’t even take a break because I was so invested, and it might start to get confusing if you take a long stroll in between episodes. Granted you might be the type of person that can take long strolls, roast a chicken, cobble some shoes, and come back completely unfazed. If that’s you I’m officially jealous.
If you are a film lover, a science fiction fanatic,
or someone that just appreciates a good story
you’ll love “Electric City”.
Trust me. But really trust Tom Hanks. This man was Forrest Gump. I think he knows what he’s doing.
- Kate Asche Wilson
Kate Asche Wilson is a new contributing writer to On Demand Weekly. She is a graduate from the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University where she received a BA in Screenwriting. In her spare time Kate likes to take long walks on the beach, and watch telenovelas. Follow her on Twitter @KATEDOESLIFE
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