Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Dispatches From Elsewhere’ On AMC, Jason Segel’s Vision Of A Man Who Finds Purpose In A Weird Game

Over the past 15 years, the show that has been associated the most with the word “twee” was Pushing Daisies, which aired on ABC from 2007-09. There was a whole lot about the show that was overly precious, but there was plenty of chemistry between the show’s leads, and more than enough story to make the show’s diehards get upset when it was cancelled. Now comes Dispatches From Elsewhere, Jason Segel’s first series since How I Met Your Mother, which threatens to take the twee crown from Daisies. But is there enough there to make the quirkiness worth watching?

DISPATCHES FROM ELSEWHERE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: We see a man in the bottom 2/3 of the screen, staring at us against a dull orange background. He blinks a few times to let you know that your TV or device isn’t frozen. Twenty-three seconds after the show begins, he finally speaks: “Now that I have your attention, I’ll begin.”

The Gist: The man, who we eventually find out is named Octavio Coleman (Richard E. Grant), explains to the audience that we’re going to see the story of Peter (Jason Segel), but dispense with the “unnecessary amount of time to introduce you to our protagonist.” Instead we get a 2-minute picture of Peter, a regular guy who has a job at a streaming music service and lives in a nondescript Philadelphia apartment. He’s the type of guy who gets bumped on the street and apologizes to the guy who bumped him. He goes to therapy just because it’s free with his health benefits. And he’s just screaming inside, wondering if this boring routine is all there is to life.

He’s looking at posted flyers for people to participate in odd studies like dolphin communications, when he sees a suspicious man put up a sign with his picture on it. It’s for the Jejune Institute. Through various mysterious directions, he shows up at their headquarters, to see an “induction” video from the very same Octavio Coleman, praising him for having the stick-to-itiveness to show up. Coleman reassures Peter that he’s part of an elite group of people who want to see just beyond what they see every day. He’s about to fill in the induction application when he sees in big red letters, “DO NOT FILL OUT THIS CARD!” One card even has his name.

He flees, but gets a call from “Commander Fourteen” of the Elsewhere Society, “mortal enemy of the Jejune Institute.” He’s sent to a South Street location and goes to an odd knickknack shop, where he’s accosted by a woman named Simone (Eve Lindley). She’s also been dispatched by the Elsewhere Society to this place and she’s giddy that she’s involved in this game. Peter, on the other hand, is worried. He thinks everything described by both men (who sound amazingly similar!) is real and there’s some sort of epiphany at the end of it.

After a day together, they come together again later that evening after getting further audio instructions (Peter is told to dance, and dances with white-clad break dancers in a downpour). They’re told to go to the park and meet people with paddles in the same shade of blue as theirs. They end up meeting Fredwynn (André Benjamin), a conspiracist who parades around the 1590 SAT score he got when he was in grammar school, and Janice (Sally Field), who thinks this is a “charade… a wonderful evening out.” Either way, they are asked to display “divine nonchalance” while trying to find a missing girl.

Our Take: Dispatches From Elsewhere is definitely a Jason Segel project; he’s one of the executive producers (along with showrunner Michael Friedman, Eli Bush, Garrett Basch and others), he wrote the teleplay for the pilot and directed it, as well. It’s based on a documentary called The Institute, which depicts an alternate-reality game that took place in 2008 in San Francisco.

As weird as that is, though, Segel and Friedman have decided to make things even stranger, starting with Grant staring at the audience for an unnerving 23 seconds before speaking. For the first 2/3 of the first episode, the show was just quirk for quirk’s sake; vintage TVs, odd lighting, all sorts of weirdness surrounding Peter and his piffle of a life. The show starts to come alive when Peter meets Simone, and then when the two of them meet Fredwynn (“I feel like if you wrote it out, you’d spell it wrong,” he tells Simone) and Janice, we start to figure out where this show is going.

At the very least, we’re going to find out more about these four people, along with Octavio, as they endeavor to solve the puzzle. Indeed, each of the first four episodes are named after each of the “family” members, and we already know that we’re going to find out more about Simone in episode 2. But for Dispatches From Elsewhere to work, there has to be some sort of story behind the Michel-Gondry-meets-Spike-Jonze-style madness.

It’s not much to ask, for a lot of reasons. One, of course, is that the quirk can only go so far in the longform style of a limited series; in a 2-hour movie, it’s fine, but here it will get tiresome quickly. The other big reason is the cast. Sally Field is Sally Field, and she’s not there just to play a nice older lady who can’t wrap her mind around this. Benjamin, aka André 3000, is a showman who won’t just be there as the nerdy conspiracy-loving caricature.

But the final reason why we’re hoping for more story is that there’s a burgeoning chemistry developing between Segel and Lindley. Simone is sort of the “manic pixie dream girl” of this piece, but she’s also trans, with all of the difficulties and issues that come with being trans (Lindley herself is also trans). From the start it looks like Peter and Simone were going to get together, and it’ll be fun to see that initial attraction grow.

The whole question is: Can we put up with the show’s tweeness as it tells its story?

Sex and Skin: Nothing so far,

Parting Shot: Simone, after being accosted by two men on her way home from her get-together with her new “family”, is at home breathing heavy and sweating, saying, “You’re OK. You’re OK.” Given her use of pepper spray and kicks to the crotch, this isn’t the first time she’s had to defend herself.

Sleeper Star: It’s refreshing to see a show being shot in Philadelphia, and Segel really uses Center City locations, as well as South Street and elsewhere, as a central character to the show.

Most Pilot-y Line: As Simone walks home, we see a horizontal split screen of her practicing “divine nonchalance” in animated form, looking like Betty Boop’s sister. This was a piece of quirk that took away from the drama of the scene we were watching, where Simone was being followed by two men who were either being pigs or getting on her for being trans.

Our Call: STREAM IT. We’re hoping that some of the quirkiness of Dispatches From Elsewhere meshes better with story as the series goes along, but the ensemble’s initial chemistry compels us to keep watching.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

Stream Dispatches From Elsewhere On AMC.com