Room 104 Is The Creepiest Show You’ve Never Seen
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Perhaps no television show is trickier to make than an anthology show. Every episode needs a premise that’s fresh but on theme, and the range in quality can be vast. Some episodes will flop and others will be huge hits, but all you can do is move forward and try something new for next week with the hope of keeping your batting average up.
Black Mirror and The Twilight Zone are both proof of this, as the anthology series have produced iconic episodes, but also forgettable filler lost to the dustbins of TV history. Five years ago, HBO tried to simplify the whole process by reducing the affair to two beds, a table and chair, and a bathroom.
Jay and Mark Duplass created Room 104 as a playground for directors. Every episode is a half-hour story set in the title motel room, where something’s always a little off. Obviously, this saved a lot of money on design, but it also gave Room 104 a unique tone. Hotels are spaces where people gather for a temporary and specific purpose; it could be two Mormon missionaries forced to confront a shared secret, a scandalous hookup full of hidden identities, or a couple trying to relive their honeymoon. Whatever the case, secrets tend to be spilled.
One of Room 104’s best episodes, “Crossroads,” follows a demon (Paul F. Tompkins) as he attempts to collect on a deal made with a mortal (June Squibb).
Room 104 took liberal advantage of its format to play with gimmicks and twist endings. There’s an episode that’s told through interpretive dance, a musical, a sitcom, and even an animated episode. Crucially, though, there were never too many twists. This isn’t the kind of show where you sit and try to guess what’s going to happen next, so what twists did arrive were completely unexpected.
These stories were aided by an impressive roster of directors, including renowned filmmakers like Patrick Brice and Macon Blair, and multiple actors-turned-directors, including Karan Soni, Gaby Hoffmann, and Natalie Morales. Each took a simple premise and showed the room through a different lens, figuratively and literally.
Some episodes of Room 104 are told through completely different art forms.
Black Mirror may be getting increasingly ambitious, but sometimes keeping things simple ensures the quality remains high. Five years on, I think about even my least favorite Room 104 episodes more than I do the very best episodes of The Twilight Zone. It deserves better than to be buried in the dustheap.
