While Station Eleven might be a post-apocalyptic masterpiece from HBO, the real-life timing of the show’s release could not have been less fortunate. Plenty of good TV shows and movies have been derailed by the timing of real-life circumstances. 2002’s Dave Barry adaptation Big Trouble was effectively abandoned due to its comedic depiction of a plane hijacking post-9/11.
Similarly, although HBO’s post-apocalyptic sci-fi series Station Eleven was adored by critics, the show’s arrival during the COVID-19 pandemic was terribly unfortunate. Based on the award-winning 2014 novel of the same name by author Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven takes place in a world whose human population has been largely wiped out by a flu virus.
As such, it was a shame that the series was first released in December 2021, when the COVID-19 pandemic had been underway for almost two years and showed no signs of abating any time soon. Even though Station Eleven’s story picks up 20 years after the end of civilization, the show’s premise still hit a little too close to home.
Station Eleven Premiered During The Pandemic
Despite its limited ten-episode run, Station Eleven tells a complex story with many main characters and a self-referential streak. Mackenzie Davis leads the series as Kirsten Raymonde, a member of the Traveling Symphony. This group survives this post-apocalyptic setting by, appropriately enough, traveling the devastated world and playing music.
The group of traveling musicians eventually comes across a cult that has an unexpected personal connection to one of their members, but not before Station Eleven introduces a diverse array of other characters. There is Lori Petty as the co-founder of the Traveling Symphony, Andy McQueen and David Cross as two of its members, and Danielle Deadwyler as Miranda, an author.
Miranda penned the in-universe graphic novel Station Eleven, adding a further layer of complexity to the show’s twisty narrative. The show complicates things further by bouncing back and forth in time between the night of the pandemic and the main action of its story, which takes place two decades later.
Of course. Station Eleven is hardly the first show to bounce back and forth in time, and the show’s anachronic storytelling is far from the most complex plotting seen on TV in recent years. However, the real-life resonances of the show’s story were still unavoidably unfortunate given the timing of its release. When Station Eleven premiered, COVID-19 was still widespread.
The worldwide closures and lockdowns that accompanied the pandemic remained in place, meaning viewers were unlikely to want to watch a piece of media set after the end of the world in their free time. Although CBS’s 2020 Stephen King adaptation, The Stand, suffered a similar fate, that show had other issues that made its sidelining less unfortunate.
Station Eleven’s Story Was Written Long Before The COVID-19 Pandemic
There would have been plenty of problems with CBS’s take on The Stand even if the show’s pandemic plot had no unfortunate real-life mirrors at the time of its release. In contrast, Station Eleven’s story was engaging, its cast was universally superb, and the show would almost certainly have earned an even warmer welcome if it weren’t for its timing.
The fact that St. John Mandel released Station Eleven back in 2014 alone proves that the show’s plot wasn’t linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, but what made its timing more unfortunate was its lengthy development. The rights to the novel were acquired back in 2015, a year after its original release and some five years before the pandemic began.
As such, the show had been in development for a while by the time the COVID-19 pandemic started in earnest. Creator Patrick Somerville and director Hiro Murai had been attached to the series since 2019, while casting for the series was announced in October and November 2019.
Station Eleven Is An Easier Watch Now
Even the filming of Station Eleven was impacted by COVID-19, as the pandemic led the production to move from Chicago to the smaller city of Mississauga. Luckily, time has been kind to the show’s story, and re-watching Station Eleven five years later is a less tense experience than seeing the series around the time of its original release.
The central story remains as engaging as ever, and its real-life resonances are no longer as obvious with a few years of distance separating the show from its original air date. If anything, the occasional reminders of the COVID-19 pandemic make the sci-fi story feel more poignant than ever.
Meanwhile, the fact that mainstream hits like 2025’s 28 Years Later have addressed similar themes on a blockbuster scale shows just how much culture has moved on from the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the historic period is still frequently mentioned, the pandemic mostly endures as a collective cultural memory.
HBO Max’s 10-Part Silo Replacement Sci-Fi Series Returns To Conquer Streaming Charts 4 Years Later
HBO Max’s own Silo replacement is dominating in the world of streaming as the 10-part sci-fi drama is now climbing the charts four years later.
In that regard, Station Eleven’s patient, elegiac meta story about storytelling couldn’t be a more fitting time capsule back to that confusing, complicated historic era. While Station Eleven wasn’t intended to be so timely, the moment that the HBO show captured is one that still resonates years later.
- Release Date
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2021 – 2022-00-00
- Network
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HBO Max
- Directors
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Hiro Murai, Helen Shaver, Jeremy Podeswa, Lucy Tcherniak
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Mackenzie Davis
Kirsten Raymonde
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Himesh Patel
Jeevan Chaudhary
