Damien

Damien is a series with 10 episodes about the life of The Omen on his thirties, when he is still unaware that he is the Antichrist but a series of incidents starts revealing his destiny. I am not a fan of horror films or series, and I really never understood why so many things bad and bloody happen and those genres, and Damien is not different for me.

The show was well done and quite frankly I like the style on which it was written but it leaves us, the audience, with too many questions throughout the whole show. But what I didn’t like the most was the fact that the usual format for a series is that on the first episode, the pilot, it establish what the series is about and the second episode establish the story that’s going to be developed throughout the whole length of the series, however in this series didn’t start with anything on the first episode and even less on the second.

Spoiler alert: the first episode does establish what we already know, that he is The Omen or the Antichrist, then on the second episode it just show his story searching for the truth not believing of what he is. And then he spend the whole series searching for the truth and searching for ways not to be right, that he is not the Antichrist until the very end when he finally find out that he actually is and accept it. It is a series that spend 10 hours in one story only, like a movie the takes 10 hours to watch. It is just boring. In my opinion it would have been a lot more interesting to watch him accepting who he is on the first episode, followed by 9 episodes of him working on what to do and how to utilize his new awareness of his powers, whether he is going to use it for his benefit or for the world’s benefit, or for Satan, or for Christ, and his journey to come up with that solution for his own destiny.

One of the most disturbing part of the whole series is that the end left too many questions, too many things that is left on the air in the actual series finale. For instance (spoiler alert) whose hands is the one coming out of the grave, what are the clergymen coming from Rome going to do, also how in the hell they were able to travel with all that weapons, and what will happen with Damien now that he is embracing his identity and destiny (which is what I had just mentioned above that I wish the series was about)? Also the cop that hated him now he is one of his admirers/followers, so will he close the case? There are way too many questions that is left on the air and unfortunately the series was canceled so now we will never know any answer, and that makes me wondering when the writer/show runner was writing the last episode why he left so many things hanging. I do understand that the producers never know exactly if the series is going to be picked up by the network or not, but in case it is not the last episode that it is confirmed to be shot should have been done with closure to the story arc, even though it could have a cliffhanger to bring excitement for the follow-up season, it shouldn’t leave the ending with so many undisclosed stories like that. As an audience I really felt disregarded when I’m watching a whole series that doesn’t have closure in the end, that is very disturbing. For that matter I do not recommend to watch because you will end up unsatisfied.

Before ending I just wanted to comment the visual effect, production designing, and acting were very well done for most part. There were a few things that made no sense as to why they were there at all, but just to have a little bit more of horror style for instance; (spoiler alert) the part where the character of the woman was in the bathroom having a bath and found what looks like an embryo in the water hole. Unless her sister was pregnant and aborted there was no reason to have something over there because nothing at all in the hole Series has anything to do with an embryo, nothing. And some of the actors, I just couldn’t buy their performances. Not too much of the main actors, as Damien, by Bradley James, his friend Omid, and the two evil bosses were great, a few small roles actors were good too, but many other small roles or guest appearances I just couldn’t buy it. Again that is my opinion and also remember as I said I am not a horror fan so I already don’t have the good eye side for that, and I know the many people love horrors and will disagree 120% with me. That is fine we cannot all love the same kind of film or TV show but here is my input.