We’re all weird in some way, right? I know I certainly am. When it comes to certain things, I just can’t explain why. It just is for me. When I first saw Yvonne Strahovski in the Dexter series along with 24: Live Another Day, I knew I just had to support her going forward. There are certain actors and actresses that regardless of other opinions, I’d always support. It could be due to their looks, the way they have a way acting on screen, or whatever. It doesn’t matter too much what the reason is, but just that you’ll love to watch more of them in future movies or series. I was extremely happy for her role in The Handsmaid’s Tale. So it was not much of a surprise for me when I saw her featuring in the new Peacock Original series called Teacup that I’d eventually one day give it a shot. Well, that day has arrived. Unfortunately, it’s a near disaster of a series.

I’m not sure how else to put it. Teacup is just a very bad series. Like very, very bad. The 6.4 IMDb rating with over 6.8K reviews is still too generous in my opinion. At the heart of this first season comprised of eight episodes is about a family on an isolated ranch whom are about to find out that shit is about to get very weird by the way of their electricity going out and their farm animals freaking out. Add a bunch of their neighbors to the mix, and they soon learn that some random mysterious dude shows up of nowhere, paints a blue line seemingly at random around their ranch and any living thing with some consciousness (I think?) gets badly mutilated in the most horrifying of ways out of thin air. We then discover that aliens have landed on earth (of course it’s fucking aliens, it’s always aliens) and that they can possess a human as their host. Yadda, yadda, blah blah blah….it sounds a bit interesting, but I promise you, the execution of this first season is just not good to the point where you actually give a shit…at all.

OK, I get it. It can be hard to produce a movie, let a long a good TV series. But is it that hard to fathom that in order to captivate audience members, the one golden rule is that you must have characters that people actually give a shit about? Whether they are on the good or evil side doesn’t matter. If I feel like wanting to choke a character out because of his or her actions, then I’d consider that a good job on behalf of the actors/actress and the story itself. But when nothing of this sort plays out for the entire series, it’s just not fun anymore to watch or continue because well, we’re not emotionally vested in finding out the outcome of anyone! Like, I literally don’t care about one single person in Teacup. I mean maybe I wanted to choke slam McNab at a point or so, especially for ditching Travis, but that was about it.

But let’s really get to the bottom of why this series is so awful: lack of answers. Yes, I know, this is only season 1. But wouldn’t you want the audiences to, you know, be motivated to watch season 2? You might be able to do that by not providing enough answers, but without the emotional attachment of solid characters to root for, that’s very hard to do. It’s like they’ve taken a page right out of the series From. That series also has frustrated many viewers, including myself, due to the lack of answers in the first season and to a point the second season as well, but I was at least interested in some of the characters to continue with it. Here, there’s not one that can fulfill that role of emotional attachment. James? Hardly. Cheating on your wife hardly counts. Ruben? Nah, he cool but he just seems too ordinary. I mean come on, we just know the heel turn is going to come sooner or later. Meryl? Again, she’s a normal teenager, hardly exciting. Nicholas? Same as Meryl. Arlo? Same, but as a kid. Harbinger inhabiting his mind doesn’t count. Maggie? One of the reasons why I gave this show a chance? Maybe a little attachment due to my bias, but she’s just the normal protective and reasonable mother we’ve likely come to expect. McNab might be, as weird as it may sound, the only one I may have some interest in.

It’s hard for me to continue with this series. What I fear happening is that this will go to the way of The Walking Dead where new characters after new characters get introduced in each new season to try and extend the story. I got that feeling at the end of the season finale. Some things I wished they simply would have tried to explain rather than drag on. Like why and how did that mysterious dude at the end of episode one have the power or knowledge to paint that blue line where if someone of the other side crossed it, they’d get utterly destroyed? Was he one of the “good” alien? Probably not as he was wearing the gas mask? If not, did he and all the other people drink that mysterious “poison” liquid? How did that alien woman able to spring up that frigging tree inside the wooden shack seemingly out of nowhere, and what was its purpose? Why would they go through with the drowning of someone they think is possessed if the alien is still able to transfer to another host and all without having to do the whole close up, open mouth transfer thing?! Obviously Maggie and James didn’t know this but from a story perspective, it kind of doesn’t make sense? Is it supposed to at that point? Anyway, it’s hard to recommend this series to anyone but the most devout alien invasion loving crowd.