'The Booth At The End' has a lot of things going for it. It has an interesting and kind of novel premise about a guy who sits in a restaurant and "provides opportunities" for people. He asks them what they want and they get it, if they do something very specific.
Not only is this premise interesting and has a lot of potential to go into a lot of different directions, it also allows for all of the story to take place at one single location (even if he sits in a different restaurant in season 2). I am a sucker for this kind of show, especially if it is dialogue- and character-driven, which 'The Booth At The End" is.
The dialogue is well-written for the most part and the characters are decently portrayed and mostly interesting. I enjoyed watching the short episodes, which consist of the man talking to about half a dozen characters, who take centre-stage for only 1-2 minutes before the scene cuts to another conversation.
However, I felt there wasn't really enough pay-off in the end to consider it a really good show. I don't think the underlying mystery needs to be resolved, as I can accept a supernatural premise and suspend my disbelief for it, but in the end I think there's next to nothing the show is really telling us. It's entertaining to get to know the different characters and their motivations, but if the point of the show is to show us how far people are willing to go to get what they want, it fails, because we simply don't get to know the characters for long enough to make them really life-like. They are just there in order to trade something in to get what they want, so there's no way for the viewer to relate to the characters and how they got to the point of doing something more or less horrible to get something else. As far as I'm concerned, that's the major flaw with the show, and that makes it merely entertaining instead of outstanding.
Not only is this premise interesting and has a lot of potential to go into a lot of different directions, it also allows for all of the story to take place at one single location (even if he sits in a different restaurant in season 2). I am a sucker for this kind of show, especially if it is dialogue- and character-driven, which 'The Booth At The End" is.
The dialogue is well-written for the most part and the characters are decently portrayed and mostly interesting. I enjoyed watching the short episodes, which consist of the man talking to about half a dozen characters, who take centre-stage for only 1-2 minutes before the scene cuts to another conversation.
However, I felt there wasn't really enough pay-off in the end to consider it a really good show. I don't think the underlying mystery needs to be resolved, as I can accept a supernatural premise and suspend my disbelief for it, but in the end I think there's next to nothing the show is really telling us. It's entertaining to get to know the different characters and their motivations, but if the point of the show is to show us how far people are willing to go to get what they want, it fails, because we simply don't get to know the characters for long enough to make them really life-like. They are just there in order to trade something in to get what they want, so there's no way for the viewer to relate to the characters and how they got to the point of doing something more or less horrible to get something else. As far as I'm concerned, that's the major flaw with the show, and that makes it merely entertaining instead of outstanding.