The OA: = Over And out.

A few words about the Netflix series The OA, which I've watched for 2 episodes and that's most likely going to be it. Clearly, this series is a Netflix attempt to double down on the surprise success of Stranger Things: once again a female protagonist appears out nowhere in a comfortable suburban community, carrying with her some complex and secret history of abuse, unable to communicate her experience directly, bearer of mysterious powers, assembles around her a cadre of supporters, most of them outsiders or misfits, and, despite dire warnings from authority figures, embarks on a rescue mission of sorts. Specifically in The OA, a young woman, who had been missing for 7 years, suddenly reappears and is reunited with her (adoptive) parents; when she had disappeared, she was blind - now she can see. OK, so here's why The OA fails whereas Stranger Things held our interest and attention. First of all, we accept that in a scifi, horror, or supernatural story such as Stranger Things, there will be forces at work beyond rational explanation - mind-reading, disappearance into another dimension, ability to control animals, and so forth. That's the premise we must suspend disbelief and buy into. But when we buy into that bargain, we expect the rest of the narrative to be clear and pure: In Stranger Things, the lost character had been held captive in some kind of mysterious government science experiment, which we are gradually learning about. The back story in The OA is so ridiculously complicated and convoluted, involving a childhood in Russia, a drowning and near-death experience, an abduction, and on and on, that we lose the thread and lose interest. Writing a narrative is not the same thing as creating a series of incidents, sorry. Second, in scifi etc., accepting the one fantastic premise works only if everything else in the narrative is acceptable as realistic or naturalistic narrative. I'm willing to believe at least part of the back story the The OA (Russian birth, blindness, super powers, etc.) if her (her name is Prairie, but she calls herself The OA, still not explained - stupid title, anyway) behavior is in any way normal and credible. So if you can believe that a 21-year-old blind woman who's led a completely sheltered life in a loving home would suddenly head, alone, to NYC w/ no money and just a small backpack & a violin (because he has a vision of the statue of liberty, no less), could figure out how to live on the streets as a subway busker (still looking clean and healthy), and why she would head off in a private plane with a man who approaches her in the subway and says he'd like make her part of his study on near-death experiences - well, please, I can't buy this behavior for one second (ditto for the kids and, believe it or not, the high-school teacher who agree to be part of her rescue team and stay up all night by candlelight to hear her story - completely unrealistic characters, absurd behavior).