TL;DR – A beautifully contemplative end to a fascinating series.

Disclosure – I paid for the Stan service that viewed this series.

Warning – Contains scenes that may cause distress.

Earth Abides Review –

One of the interesting little gems that I found towards the end of the year was an exploration of life and death in the aftermath of absolute tragedy. What do you do when you are alone in a world that was once teaming with life? Do you survive? Do you pack it in? Do you reach out? Or do you close yourselves off from everything? These are the questions we ask in the ruins of the old world.   

So, to set the scene, twin tragedies have struck the small community of San Lupo. First, Heather (Aleksandra Cross) has returned home alone after a long sojourn north without Raif (River Codack). Even worse, after twenty years, the virus returned, and soon, many members of the town became ill. Sadder for Ish (Alexander Ludwig) and Emma (Jessica Frances Dukes), one of those affected is their son Joey (Elias Leacock), whose shoulders much of the future was resting on. We will be looking at the episode and season as a whole from here, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.   

I think this episode would be challenging for any parent to watch. I don’t have kids, and it was hard for me to watch a small child die throughout an episode. However, it was not played for cheap sympathies. You felt that emotional weight and the impact as it permeated throughout the community. The reason why it hit so hard is because this is a series that explores more of the philosophical questions about this scenario than anything else. In this case, Ish discovers that he is constantly trying to recreate the old world when he should be trying to build a new one. Or even the question of whether humans should keep going after what they did now that the Earth has rebounded without their presence.

The whole back half of the final episode is all about defining what sort of future they want for their community when they discover that Joey has designed a working radio. While everyone rushes to put it together, the community coming together to find a new way forward. It may have taken an impromptu lemonball to get it to stick, which aside might be one of the better impromptu baseball scenes that I have watched that did not need to be hidden by thunder. But they do find someone else alive out there. It is a joyous moment but also a fearful one. What are you going to let define your community: fear or joy? It is the final and defining question that the show asks, and I feel it is a poignant one to ask today.

While I do think that, for the most part, the final episode stuck the landing, the question then becomes: how did the mini-series work as a whole? Well, on this front, I do feel a little bad because I think I will constantly be comparing it to those who have worked in this space, and I believe they have larger budgets to make the post-apocalyptic world land better. They are doing their best with what they have been given. Still, there are a lot of moments when the visual effects are not composited as well as they could be, or they didn’t have the time or resources to completely edit a scene to say remove all those clearly not 20-year-old neglected boats in the harbour.  

While these production issues are there, thankfully, they don’t impact the emotion, which is also brought to the foreground. Some moments truly hit hard, such as when Ish discovers his dead parents, when his and Em’s (Jessica Frances Dukes) first child had a difficult birth, or when Ish caves in Charlie’s (Aaron Tveit) head with a hammer, which I think surprised everyone, including Ish and Charlie. They did an excellent job of making us care about this community, which they are building in only a handful of episodes. This is even more astounding once you consider how many extensive time jumps the series undertakes, yet everything still holds together. A lot of that also comes down to the cast, who all fall into certain archetypes, but they clearly understand that and play into those moments.  

From the look of things, I would say that this is a faithful adaptation of the first and some of the second part of George R. Stewart’s original novel [with a brief jump to part three]. There are a lot of ways in which the adaptation has brought the series into the modern world. In many ways, the novel was revolutionary for its time, but in other ways, it is very much grounded in the philosophies and ideologies of the 1940s, and a direct translation of that would not have worked in 2024. All of those beats from those first two parts are there, but they are packaged in a slightly different way.

So, in the end, do we recommend Earth Abides: Forever is Tomorrow is Today? While I would say that it felt rushed in places, I would have liked more time to bring some of these elements to bear. That is only because I genuinely enjoyed my time in this world and would have liked to see more of it. It might not have the heightened action of The Last of Us or the sharp emotions of Station Eleven. What it does have is a perfect understanding of community and a desire to explore those philosophical questions that would arise in a world starting anew.  

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen Earth Abides yet ?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.    

Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Earth Abides
Directed by – Bronwen Hughes, Rachel Leiterman & Stephen S. Campanelli
Written by – Todd Komarnicki, Karen Janszen, Tony Spiridakis, Evan Heart & Kyle Stephen
Created by – Todd Komarnicki
Based On – Earth Abides by George R. Stewart
Production/Distribution Companies – Bright Light Pictures, Lighthouse Productions, Peak TV, MGM Studios & MGM+ & Stan
Starring – Alexander Ludwig & Jessica Frances Dukes with Aaron Tveit, Rodrigo Fernandez-Stoll, Elyse Levesque, Luisa d’Oliveira, Hilary McCormack, Birkett Turton, Aleksandra Cross, Jenna Berman, Lennox Leacock, Elias Leacock, Adelyn Bruce, Isaiah Ramirez, Victoria Morgan, Howie Lai, Andres Joseph, Taylor Kinequon, Toby Marks, River Codack, Timothy Stubbs & Leah Gibson and Martin Donovan, Milania Kerr, Leah Belle MacDonald, Amarah Taylor, Kawhi Hollywood, Denzel Onaba, Eamon McBride, Luke Alfred Bateman & Samson Peake-Ondego
Episodes Covered – Alone, The Space Between, World Without End, Predators, The Return & Forever is Tomorrow is Today