Anthology television shows have been around forever. Shows likeThe Twilight Zone,Tales From The Crypt,Amazing Stories,and evenAre You Afraid Of The Dark?have continued to be popular, garnering reboots and repeats for years, sometimes decades. The appeal of anthologies is easy to see; multiple stories and genres on a weekly basis helps to keep audiences interested and staves off the risk of stale storytelling that can happen in some long-running linear shows.
One such anthology series wasRoom 104which ran for 4 seasons on HBO before coming to an end in 2020. Created by the Duplass brothers,the minds behind movies such asCreep,The Skeleton Twins,andBad Milo, Room 104was certainly a show that covered the full gamut of genres in an interesting way.
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The thread tying every story together is simple: each story is set in the same room in a small American roadside motel. Right from the first episode, it’s clear that this show is going to be more than a little off-kilter. The first story is about Meg, who has taken a job babysitting a pre-teen called Ralph in room 104. All seems fairly normal, apart from the fact that Ralph won’t come out of the bathroom. Once his dad is gone he appears and tells Meg that they have to be quiet because “Ralphie” is in the bathroom, and he is not nice. Meg thinks Ralphie isan imaginary friend of Ralph’sand so ignores him. Until she wakes him up.
As the night goes on Meg starts to realize that there may be something terribly wrong with Ralph. He tells her a frightening story about how his mother died then quickly tells her that Ralphie actually killed her. Is Ralphie real? Is it just Ralph playing dress-up? Or is Meg losing her grip on reality?
That’s just the first episode. For however long the motel has been standing, room 104 has seen a lot of weird things. Cults trying to help people transcend (for a fee of course),heartfelt stories about familiesand grief, and almost silent tales of reconnecting with your younger self through interpretive dance. For stories that only last around 23 minutes, each episode packs in a feature’s worth of character work. Connecting with each new character and story is easy, it has to be, but the quality of the narratives at no point suffer for it.
Later in season 2, another standout episode is called “Arnold”. Presented as a musical, Arnold awakens in what is apparently a full bathtub, not knowing how he got there or what happened the night before. From here Arnold attempts to piece together the events of the previous evening through song, clever lighting, and whatever is to hand in the room. Arnold recounts the story to himself without ever leaving room 104.Memories are triggered by random phraseshe remembers and old songs that wove their way into the evening where he met Vicki in her yellow jacket.
The story plays out like a condensed Broadway musical, Arnold sings about being dragged out by his friend, meeting a girl in a yellow jacket, and falling in love. Viewers are swept up in the romance, the “set” changes, and the sweetness of Arnold’s character. It’s incredibly easy to get wrapped up in the outcome of Arnold’s story with Vicki and the ending will definitely not be what viewers expect to see. That is what makesRoom 104such an engaging show. It knows what’s expected in a story,and in a musical, and it does its best to flip those expectations on its head consistently. The only way to do that is to have exceptional knowledge of narratives and their structure.
The aim ofRoom 104is to tell very human stories, no matter how mundane or absurd the human or the circumstances. There might be androids and pool sharks and voices in the walls but all the stories matter. The stories are snapshots of people’s lives, a brief window into a life that is sometimes just beginning or coming to a close.People who are surviving, thriving, sleeping, or at least trying to in room 104 as the world goes on outside the window, a world with no idea about the strange things happening just inside the walls and behind the closed door.
There are four seasons ofRoom 104, 48 episodes in total, 48 different stories about different people in different places in their lives. There is sweetness and joy, and weirdness and absurdity. There is also sometimes devastating sadness. A way of reflecting on situations and puttinga lens to human behavior and emotionthat even long-form linear shows fail to achieve at times. Each story is cleverly crafted with no minute wasted, and with an anthology series set in a hotel, viewers can check in anytime.
