The Lost Room played on TV today. We hadn’t heard about it and knew nothing about it other than what little was said on the Internet site for that TV station, but since the premise looked interesting enough, we watched. And boy, were we glad that we did.
It’s a television mini-series – three two-hour episodes (although we saw it minus the ads, so a total of four and a half hours, although, for all we know, some scenes were deleted due to censors). It played back-to-back, so of course I had to cook lunch before it even started, and had to then get lunch and take pee-breaks on the five or six minutes between episodes. The first episode was so captivating that there was no way I was going to miss any of it if I could help it!
It starts with a man selling a key, which leads to a police detective investigating some strange deaths (the people involved in selling the key). That leads the detective to the guy with a key, who gives the key to him just before the guy… The key leads to a motel room that leads to, well, anywhere. Then things go wrong, which is only natural because that’s what makes a good story. 🙂
As the story unfolds, we learn about other objects that came from that same hotel room, and each of those objects has a special, for lack of a better word, power. Like the comb that, when used, stops time for the person holding the comb for ten seconds, long enough for an escape. Or the scissors that rotate. Or the eye that…
I won’t tell you too much more because, honestly, I don’t want to ruin the story for you. I will tell you, though, that the story itself was so brilliant that it’s one of those I-wish-I’d-written-that masterpieces.
It’s amazingly well-put together with, for the most part, not especially well known actors who played their parts spectacularly. No heavy handedness, no hamming it up, just perfectly natural acting that does the job and does it well. No plot holes to drive even a toy car through. Just sheer brilliance, start to end.
If you haven’t seen it, I would so urge you to hie thee to a video store or Netflix or wherever you get your DVDs from and rent or buy the thing. And while you’re at it, feel free to get us a DVD copy, too – I’d love to see it again! 😀
Yay! So glad we’re not the only ones who enjoyed it!
From the IMDB listing, it doesn’t look like it was a novel or a short story, which is too bad. If it were a novel, or a series of novels, you can bet your last dollar I’d be buying them. 🙂
The Lost Room was a great mini-series and I thought it was one of the better series that Sci-Fi Channel has done. Usually their stuff is lame, but this one was amazing. The writing and creativity was great and it was well thought out. I don’t know if this was a book, but I think it would make a great novel.
…and we’re watching it again today and loving it just as much as we did the first time. Cwap!