Solos Season One Review

Sometimes in order to truly dive deep into the bigger issues that connect us all as human beings, one must strip everything else away. As the title suggests, Solos is the latest sci-fi anthology series telling a diverse collection of single character stories focusing on the human experience all while boasting an impressive cast to lead each of these stories. Working better as separate installments than as a whole, the series’ collective starpower ultimately makes it a decent and relatively quick binge watch, running at only 7 episodes that are all around the 30 minute mark. When it comes to most anthology series, there’s always the question of how it all these parts will eventually fit together. That investigation will surely be one of the other big selling points of the series as it may prompt multiple watches in order to catch all the little things. Perhaps in the midst of the pandemic, already isolated from the world as we once knew it, is the best time to make these stories hit just a little harder.

Going from time travel, to the vastness of space, to the aftermath of another pandemic of sorts just to name a few, Solos uses those avenues to explore our connections to ourselves, each other, and the world around us and how it shapes us as humans in different ways. Despite being grounded and simple character stories, each episode was still a journey over the course of their relatively short running times. Meanwhile, the production value was also impressive and unique for each episode and they were beautiful to look at but most importantly, it creating the kind of intimacy needed to connect with these stories and characters on a deeper emotional level. While they may not all reach the same emotional heights, some took longer to get going than others. If anything, the short running time of the episodes hindered the character and story development needed in some instances in order to take certain episodes to another level.

The parts of Solos may exceed their whole in terms of a cohesive package but that being said, the writing and performances from a cast including the likes of Anne Hathaway, Anthony Mackie, Helen Mirren, Uzo Aduba, Constance Wu, Nicole Beharie, Dan Stevens, and Morgan Freeman make it all well worth the ride. Though some stood out more than others, primarily Mirren, Wu, and Beharie in their respective episodes, the series was an undisputed showcase for their collective abilities. They were essentially required to carry their episodes and all the emotional baggage alone while often finding more out of the writing which was admittedly lacking at times. In terms of the correct order to watch the episodes, any order should work without problem as long as the last episode (entitled Stuart) is watched last. Whether or not this season is meant to be a one-off remains to be seen barring its reception of course, it does leave the door open for more stories and maybe more big stars in the future.

At the end of the day, Solos is a compelling experience that uses today’s circumstances to deliver something that hits just a little more these days and will only set viewers back just over 3 hours overall.

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.