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Old 01-08-2023, 10:09 AM   #8 (permalink)
Trollheart
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Title: The Booth at the End
Genre: Mystery/Drama
Year(s): 2010 - 2012
Basic premise: A man who sits in a particular booth (the one of the title) in a particular diner is rumoured to be the last hail mary gasp chance if you are in a situation where nobody else can help, if you’re desperate. He offers each person a task, and if they complete it their wish will be granted.
Starring: Xander Berkeley
Seasons: 2
Written/created by: Christopher Kubasik
Nationality: Canadian I think
Best episode(s): Can’t recall
Worst episode(s): Don’t think there were any
Staus: Ended
What does or did this show mean to me? I loved the clever writing in it, and the understated acting of Berkeley, who’s almost more like a clerk or agent passing on instructions that have nothing to do with him.
One good quote: “How far would you go to get what you want?” (It’s the tagline)

Proof that a series can be understated and clever and yet very successful, The Booth at the End never made clear who Berkely, who is only ever referred to as “The Man” was. Could he have been Satan? A minor demon? God? A saint? An alien? Yes he could have been all of these things, or none of them, but that wasn’t the point. Though “The Man” was the epicentre of the show, the real action took place with his “clients”, and how they approached their tasks. Some were pretty mundane, or seemed so, others more direct and even brutal. Reminds me in a way of that old Twilight Zone episode, “The Button”, where a couple are presented with a box that has a button on top. If they push it, they’re told, someone will die. It will be someone they do not know, and tomorrow they will be fabulously rich. So, would you push the button?

That’s what’s at the centre of this show: how desperate are the characters, and what are they willing to do to achieve what they need? Are they, in effect, ready to sell their souls? There seems to be no question they will not get what they desire if they carry out the instructions, but when one such directive is to kill a child, another to make a bomb, as the tagline above says, how far would you go? It’s been years since I watched it, but I seem to remember that some, or even all of the tasks dovetail together, so that, for instance, the guy building the bomb ends up crossing paths with another person trying to stop a bomb they have no idea of the location of, and so on.

It’s clever, suspenseful stuff and it did a great job at asking where people draw the line? Is there anything you won’t do to, for instance, save your child from dying? Or yourself from bankruptcy? Or ensure your wife won’t leave you? All these questions are faced by the characters - a different one every episode - and how they respond tells us a lot about the sort of people they are. Where does The Man get his orders, if he gets any? Nobody knows. He checks a ledger book, writes in it, but we never see it, and nobody ever comes near him with messages. He’s always there, always ready to grant your fondest wish… provided you’re ready to pay, provided you’re ready to do anything. And I mean anything.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLyzvc8QHL0
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