What it's about: It's been over a decade since Chris Carter had a TV show that lasted more than a handful of seasons but that TV show was The X-Files, one of the best telly programmes in the history of the medium, spanning nine seasons and 202 episodes, so he must know what he's doing, right? Amazon are gambling on that again, having commissioned a full first season for his new creation The After. Back in the realm of the supernatural and the weird again, the specifics of the plot are being kept more tightly under wraps than a government conspiracy about aliens. What we do know is that it involves eight strangers teaming up to survive a violent, post-apocalyptic world where society has broken down and it's probably no longer frowned upon to dress in bondage gear and ride motorcycles into people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_StHaNoOaI Why it looks good: Well, it's Chris Carter, innit? Even his supposed failures were pretty good, The X-Files spin-offs Millennium and The Lone Gunmen didn't really get a chance to establish themselves, and Harsh Realm was naff become its virtual reality and hacker terminology were immediately dated, not from any bad work on Carter's part. The guy created one of our all-time favourites, and we have a good feeling about this long-awaited follow-up. The After has an intriguing premise that we hope actually pays off, another rather stellar bunch of actors appearing in it (including Arielle Kebbel and Jamie Kennedy). And the post-apocalypse. Works for Utopia and Z Nation, and those are made my mostly idiots, so surely Carter in control should make for a sure-fire hit?
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
