The main driving plot element is a computer virus infecting everyone with a H+ implant and killing them instantly, hitherto referred to simply as “the incident,” for simplicities sake, and because calling any event “the incident” just makes it sound infinitely more badass. Only a few survivors survive through the virtue of either being out of wifi range, or being one of the rural poor without an implant (the one time either of these is a good thing). The show then goes on to show the survival of the human race after the incident, and feeds a drip of information as to why and how the incident came about. The method of telling the story however, proves to be almost as inventive as the story itself, being distributed in extremely small chunks, sometimes only two or three minutes long, on a very regular basis. The ordering of the episodes seems very deliberate, however viewers are encouraged to watch the show in any order then like, to see if they can gain an additional understanding of events.
H+ juggles multiple time lines, dating from 7 years before the H+ implant fails, up to only a few months before the failure, to the days following, and then a further 2 years in the future. Each timeline has it’s own characters and storyline to start, and inevitably bleed together as the plot thickens. Much like Continuum, the show handles time, and separate timeline’s really well, and this is a major strength of the show. Each timeline adds a certain depth to the universe of the show, and secrets as to the nature of the incident are not necessarily only revealed in the shows past timeline. This writing style also provides a great deal of the show’s variety, with the immediate aftermath of the incident playing out almost as a 2012 disaster thriller, with events further in the future fitting the bill more as a post-apocalyptic thriller, in the vein of Revolution, and the past events serving as the main mystery element of the story. All of this juggling seems to gel really well, and considering the length of the show so far, it’s progressed at a rather fast pace considering there are so many reasons such a setup could not work.
Each timeline has it’s own small cast of characters, of only between one to five each, and whilst their relationship to each other hasn’t been completely explored, their do begin to bleed over and interact. A couple of characters stand out as important story-wise, and are incredibly well written, however a lot of the characters seem to exist only for the purpose of allowing said important characters to explain why they’re important. Since episodes are only roughly five minutes each, and they jump around in time so often, each character can only really have been explored for about 20 minutes tops. Which means that there has so far been very little character development, and characters are only notable for the simple fact that they have secrets and we don’t know what they are, not for their personalities, or how they’ve grown throughout events because they’re not really had a chance to do that yet. This does narrow the story to a degree, but I’m more than willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and see how things pan out.
In terms of the short length and high frequency of the episodes, on top of the order they’ve been placed, this seems to be a very deliberate exercise by the writers to take advantage of youtube's playlist features. Viewers can watch the show in any order they like, watch it all in chronological order, follow the journey of only one character, or sort them by some really creative thematic method, and then share these playlists with the community to facilitate conversation about the show and for everyone to share their theories. Whilst this method takes advantage of the youtube format, it also shares it’s downsides. Since episodes are only a few minutes long, you have to face the continual reloading of the page, re-buffering of the video, and so forth. This does serve to spoil the immersion and I feel the format would possibly work much better in a DVD release, where scenes could flow seamlessly into one another. The true test of whether this format will work however, is if watching the episodes in a different order really will reveal anything new to the viewer. What I would hope if that after watching the show all the way through in the order the developers chose, I could then watch it through in a different order, and despite knowing the big reveal at the end, I could still find something new, or a new sub-plot, that was otherwise hidden. The only problem is that I have serious reservations as to if that could actually happen, and since I’m reluctant to play about with the ordering until I’ve watched the whole thing through the first time, it may not be for me at all. Then again, I am a grumpy cynic, and I also love to be proven wrong.
On the whole H+ has an entertaining storyline that serves to only pull you in more as the show progresses, however the constant reloading of the page does spoil the immersion and prove exceedingly grating as the show progresses. The characters do seem a little flat, this may be due to the format of the episodes but since the show hasn’t really got going I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. The length of each episode is also a concern seeing as it stops just as it gets going, however they’re released with such great frequency that if you want more than a fleeting moment with the series you can just wait a couple of days and watch a bunch in one go, it’s not really a big deal. H+ shows great potential considering it’ll only top out at about 4 hours of content, and the real test of it’s greatness will come on the second and third watching. It’s going to be a show I’ll stick with and I heartily recommend it to you all, you lovely peoples of the world. The show, in it's entirety can be found at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/user/HplusDigitalSeries
Hey, at least it was only your phone that bricked.
Jamie out xoxoxo
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