Counterpart is a show I stumbled upon last year and immediately fell in love with. Set primarily in Berlin, this modern day (sci-fi?) spy thriller tells the story of what happens when a door opens between parallel dimensions and it's existence is kept secret from everyone except for a very select group. For every person on one side, there exists a doppelgänger on the other.
It's not one of those shows you can have on as background noise while you're doing something else or whiling away your evening online. It demands your full attention or you'll soon be lost.
Last year, coming in from the beginning it was relatively easy to follow along. Determining which side of the doorway you were on was a simple matter. The wife of the main character was hospitalized in a coma after being struck by a car on our side, but perfectly healthy and active in the other. The two Berlins were similar, although some very funky architecture existed on the other side that was easily recognizable even for someone who knew nothing about the city. The other side had tech we lack, but for some reason never developed cell phones.
It's been a while since Season One ended, so my memory is a little hazy on the espionage aspect and interwoven storylines, but that being said, I'm two episodes in this year and I'm totally lost. The wife who was hospitalized is now back home and the main character and his double both find themselves trapped on the wrong side the portal after a terror attack shut down diplomatic relations between the two worlds and closed the crossing.
European architecture has become so outré lately that city skylines alone no longer tell me which side the story is happening on.
I hope at some point the writers explain the who what when why how of the crossing. There's nothing special-effects heavy about it; it resembles an underground brick-walled corridor. You go in one end on our side and emerge on the other in their world.
I was drawn into Counterpoint because of its more than passing passing similarity to Fringe, a favorite series from years gone by.
At this point I'm so frustrated I'm thinking I need to go back and binge Season One this weekend just to get reoriented…