Have you ever heard of the “uncanny valley” theory? It’s the idea that a robot or other technological representation of a person may sound like a real person, but something about it is off in an unexplainable way. A new South Korean series explores this concept.
YONDER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: “2032. Following the new law on euthanasia, a social system was put in place to face death.” We see an IV dripping, and the a machine that would administer the lethal drugs that allow someone to die on their own terms.
The Gist: Cha Yi-hoo (Han Ji-min) is dying of heart cancer. She has decided to take advantage of the euthanasia law and end things on her own terms. Her husband, Kim Jae-hyun (Shin Ha-kyun), is setting up her memorial social media account. He’s reluctant to give the OK to shut down her active accounts, but Yi-hoo, her weak voice amplified via a throat implant, gives the OK.
As he remembers a memory of the two of them walking through a forest and cuddling in a hammock next to their tent, Yi-hoo tells Jae-hyun that when she dies, she feels that it’s not that she’ll cease to exist, but she’ll cease to exist within him. Then the doorbell rings; a woman named Seiren (Lee Jeong-eun) shows up; Yi-hoo tells her husband that she has some last-minute arrangements to make and sends him outside. Seiren puts a tiny circular patch under Yi-hoo’s ear. Seiren explains to Jae-hyun that she has a contract with Yi-hoo but little else. She gives him her e-card.
After that, Yi-hoo says she’s ready. With a supervisory committee standing by remotely, Jae-hyun hits the button to start the drugs flowing. After Yi-hoo passes, Chief Joeun (Jo Bo-bi) of the KNIH organ collection team comes to get the organs Yi-hoo donated; she notices the tiny circle patch and asks Jae-hyun if she can analyze it.
After downing some shots with his friend, and fielding a condolence call from his editor, who also wants him to investigate a man who keeps advertising a different way to look at death, Jay-hyun goes home and sleeps on the couch. His Alexa-style home assistant wakes him the next morning by telling him there’s a video email from Yi-hoo. Wondering just what in the world it is, he opens it; on the screen is his recently-deceased wife, saying “It’s hard to explain, but I’m here.”
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The first show we thought of was Dream Raider; both shows have to do with computers being able to access the deepest recesses of our brains.
Our Take: The second episode of the six-episode series Yonder gives a better explanation of just what Jae-hyun is seeing on that screen at the end of Episode 1. Yi-hoo has uploaded her memories to some sort of cloud computing database, run by the man whom his boss wants him to investigate. Where she is is called “Yonder,” which is somewhere between the earthly existence and whatever the afterlife might be, and through the technology invented by the site she used, he can come into her existence and be with her.
Most of what we think we’re going to see in this relatively brief series (six 30-35 minute episodes) based on the novel Goodbye, Yonder by Kim Jang-hwan is Jae-hyun reliving his memories of Yi-hoo and trying to figure out of this version of his wife is really her or some hollow computer simulation.
It certainly explores the “uncanny valley” theory, where a robot or other AI-type representation of someone looks and talks like a person, but something about that representation is off in a way you can’t quite explain. Despite the fact that we don’t know a ton about Yi-hoo, we know that this representation of her in Yonder isn’t quite who Jae-hyun knew. The question is how much that matters to him.
Due to the show’s length, it doesn’t feel like we’re going to take a deep dive into this issue, and it may have been better to have the first episode show Yi-hoo in this netherworld a little more. But perhaps its pacing, which can be a bit slow at times, helps justify the shorter episodes. Most of it will take place in Yonder, which is going to be somewhat surreal. We just hope that the show can give us some answers that feel earned instead of just explained.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: Jae-hyun sees the video of Yi-hoo saying “I’m here,” and is understandably shocked.
Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to the appropriately creepy voices of the AI home assistants.
Most Pilot-y Line: We still don’t understand why, in the near future, we would want all of our screens to be transparent. But that seems to be a sci-fi show’s shortcut to tell its audience that it’s taking place a few years from now.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Yonder moves a bit slowly, but its episodes are short and its exploration of the “uncanny valley” theory of AI is worth watching for the series’ relatively brief runtime.
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, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
The post Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Yonder’ On Paramount+, A Korean Drama About A Woman Living In The Cloud When Her Memories Are Transferred Before Her Death appeared first on Decider.
