''Dispatches from Elsewhere'' is an American drama television series created by and starring

Jason Segel Jason Jordan Segel ( ; born January 18, 1980) is an American actor and writer. He is best known for his role as Marshall Eriksen in the CBS sitcom ''How I Met Your Mother'' from 2005 to 2014. He began his career with director and producer Judd ...

that premiered on March 1, 2020, on

AMC AMC may refer to: Film and television * AMC Theatres, an American movie theater chain * AMC Networks, an American entertainment company ** AMC (TV channel) ** AMC+, streaming service ** AMC Networks International, an entertainment company *** ...

. It is based on the documentary film '' The Institute'' about the

alternate reality game An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform and employs transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be altered by players' ideas or actions. The form is defined by int ...

The Jejune Institute.

Premise

The series, set in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

, follows "a group of ordinary people who stumble onto a puzzle hiding just behind the veil of everyday life. They will come to find that the mystery winds far deeper than they ever imagined."

Cast

Main

as Peter, a data worker struggling to find meaning in his life * Andre Benjamin as Fredwynn, an intelligent yet paranoid man dedicated to figuring out the truth * Eve Lindley as Simone, a trans woman seeking an escape from her feelings of isolation * Richard E. Grant as Octavio Coleman, Esq., the enigmatic head of the Jejune Institute *

Sally Field Sally Margaret Field (born November 6, 1946) is an American actress. She has performed in movies, Broadway theater, television, and made records of popular music. Known for her extensive work on screen and stage, she has received many accola ...

as Janice Foster, an optimistic empty-nester trying to reclaim her sense of identity

Recurring

Tara Lynne Barr Tara Lynne Barr (born October 2, 1993) is an American actress. She is best known for portraying Roxy in the dark comedy film ''God Bless America'' (2011), which earned her a Young Artist Award nomination for Best Leading Young Actress in a Feat ...

as Young Janice * Ceci Balagot as Clara * Cherise Boothe as Lee * Travis Burnett as Clown-Faced Boy * Joe Forbrich as The Milkman * Sean Patrick Folster as Bigfoot

Production

Development

On July 28, 2018, it was announced that

had given the production a series order. The series was created by

who also directed the pilot and serves as executive producer alongside Scott Rudin, Eli Bush, and Garrett Basch. The series is based on the 2013 documentary film '' The Institute'', which is the story of The Jejune Institute, an

set in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

. Segel said that he chose to shoot in Philadelphia because during location scouting he was surprised to learn that the city is full of colorful public art; he said seeing the Magic Gardens for the first time was the moment he knew Philly was the right location for the show. Early versions of the script were set in an unspecified city, and then were rewritten to be about specific Philadelphia locations.

Casting

Alongside the series order announcement in July 2018, it was announced that

would star in the series. In April 2019, Richard E. Grant,

and Eve Lindley were added to the cast, with

André Benjamin André — sometimes transliterated as Andre — is the French and Portuguese form of the name Andrew and is now also used in the English-speaking world. It used in France, Quebec, Canada and other French-speaking countries, as well in Portugal ...

joining in July.

Filming

Principal photography for the series commenced in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

in July 2019.

Future

In an interview in April 2020 after the first-season finale, Jason Segel commented on the possibility of a second season: " can be either an anthology or a limited eries depending on how we decide to proceed. But the idea is that each season is stand-alone—and without giving too much away, each season would profile a specific thing, as The Jejune Institute was profiled in the first season." By October 2021, the series was implied to be over.

Episodes

Broadcast

The series was broadcast by

in the United States. In the United Kingdom, it premiered on April 29, 2020, on

BT TV EE TV (formerly BT Vision and then BT TV until 2023) is a subscription IPTV service offered by EE; a brand of British telecommunications company BT Group. It requires the signing up to and use of the EE Broadband internet and phone service, w ...

Reception

Critical response

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, the series has an 85% rating with an average score of 7.2 out of 10 based on 39 reviews. The website's critical consensus is, "A weird and whimsical journey into the unknown, ''Dispatches from Elsewhere''s experimental approach doesn't always coalesce, but committed performances and a genuine sense of wonder make it a trip worth taking." On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, it has a score of 66 out of 100 based on 17 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Keith Phipps of ''

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, vi ...

'' gave it a 4/5 rating and wrote, "What is going on is no clearer at the end of the first four episodes. That also doesn't really matter all that much. The series is as intriguing as it is heartfelt thanks to stylishly imaginative storytelling and richly developed characters."

Alan Sepinwall Alan Sepinwall (born October 19, 1973) is an American television reviewer and writer. He spent 14 years as a columnist with ''The Star-Ledger'' in Newark until leaving the newspaper in 2010 to work for the entertainment news website HitFix. He ...

of ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...

'' gave it a 3/5 star review and wrote, "Does ''Dispatches From Elsewhere'' earn its quirkiness? It's hard to tell based on the limited sample of episodes AMC made available to critics. But it's not boring, and its optimism is appealing in and of itself."

Accolades

For the 32nd GLAAD Media Awards, the series was nominated for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series.

Alternate reality game (ARG)

In October 2019, fliers promoting a fictional entity called The New Noology Network (NNN) were found in the U.S. and Canada, advertising a study on recording dreams. This directed people towards the NNN's

Twitch Twitch may refer to: Biology * Muscle contraction ** Convulsion, rapid and repeated muscle contraction and relaxation ** Fasciculation, a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction ** Myoclonic twitch, a jerk usually caused by sudden muscle c ...

channel apparently broadcasting patient sessions live, until it was revealed to be a farce. Shortly after, NNN reached out to get participants to record themselves doing seemingly absurd tasks, similar in nature to the instructions given to participants of ''The Jejune Institute.'' Participants eventually figured out that this ARG was indeed directly connected to ''Dispatches from Elsewhere.'' Hidden clues in each episode starting from the second one led to clues tracking the location of a van, furthering the progress of the ARG and mirroring the search for Clara in the show. The final episode featured some of the participants' recordings of tasks from before, particularly recordings of themselves saying "I am (participant's name), and I am you", mimicking a line from the show. Segel himself was responsible for choosing which recordings to use in the finale, and contacting the chosen participants telling them to keep the secret. More clues led to a private video message from Segel thanking participants for their involvement. ARG company Hexagram was responsible for creating the ARG with involvement from Segel, AMC's VP of digital content Kevin Dreyfuss, and AMC's director of digital media Sarah LeTrent. Hexagram enlisted Sludge to produce the live interactive content for the ARG, filming on location in

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

. Due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, instead of a grand finale with a live audience, the remainder of the ARG was re-scripted, telling players to stay safe at home and tune in to the remaining live streams.

References

External links

* {{AMC Shows 2020 American television series debuts 2020s American anthology television series 2020s American drama television series 2020s American LGBTQ-related drama television series AMC (TV channel) television dramas American English-language television shows Metafictional television series Television shows filmed in Pennsylvania Television shows set in Philadelphia Transgender-related television shows 2020 LGBTQ-related television