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The challenges themselves feel like something lost in translation between page and screen. But the mishmash of backstory narration - mostly coming from Heather, but passed like a relay baton to open one episode - and conscious withholding of key information from both viewer and various characters is so often in service of fashioning a mystery rather than living inside one.

On some level, it’s understandable that a show built around teenagers’ lives flipped upside down by a vindictive game would throw its own set of structural curveballs. The same seems to be true for making out with someone every once in a while. Part of the show’s implicit argument for the continued existence of Panic is that Carp doesn’t offer much else to do as the school year winds down. Would-be flings and tenuous love triangles flit by, mostly as means to add wrinkles into how these contests unfold. That spells particular doom for the various “Panic” attempts at romance. Past a certain point, it’s almost impossible to take everything at face value, so the show’s 10 episodes become a waiting game to see what’s left when the conspiratorial dust settles. There’s such a pattern of distrust that runs through the nature of Panic as an enterprise that it seeps into the show itself. Even when his smile is masking something decidedly more sinister underneath, at least it’s some kind of a counterbalance.

While most of the members of this show are burdened with a perpetual skeptical scowl, Montgomery at least brings “Panic” some emotional peaks and valleys. Of those people who float into her life both inside and out of Panic, Ray seems to be one of the only characters to get out from under the weight of the show’s self-seriousness. This, all on top of engaging in semi-periodic ill-advised feats of athleticism for a crowd of morbidly curious peers. It’s Heather who eventually becomes the main conduit for the story, as she tries to deal with multiple crushes, shifting friendships, a manipulative mother, and a part-time job on a nearby ranch.

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It doesn’t help that “Panic” is juggling an entire graduating class worth of potential winners, from Heather (Olivia Welch) trying to break free from a difficult home situation to Dodge (Mike Faist) the mysterious newcomer who tends to keep to himself to Ray (Ray Nicholson) the mop-topped, open-shirted permaflirt always bent on trying to cause a ruckus.

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The Best 30 LGBTQ Movies and TV Shows Streaming on Netflix Right Now

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Tegan and Sara's Teenage Years Form a Sweet, Scruffy Coming-of-Age Series in Amazon's 'High School' With all 10 episodes written by Lauren Oliver (who wrote the book the series is based on), each episode becomes like one of the Panic challenges: a tricky psychological balancing act that means far more to the people involved than the people watching.Įmmys Review: Kenan Thompson Hosts a Hurried Dud That Offers Little Inspiration

The reward - enough cash to fund a move to a new job or fall tuition or a life outside the city - is enough to entice dozens of players.īut maybe the hardest thing for “Panic” to center is the idea of just how many people are willing to risk anything short of (and maybe even including) potential manslaughter charges in order for the premise of this show to work. In “Panic,” the high schoolers in a small Texas town called Carp hold an annual secret contest where players endure a series of dangerous tasks. To keep one going like the one in the new Amazon Prime Video series “ Panic” means an impossibly concentrated effort on the part of just about everyone involved. The hard thing about town-wide conspiracies is that you need buy-in from a lot of people.

Party panic review