Population 11, on Amazon Prime, stars Ben Feldman as a guy searching for his father in a paranormal-ridden Australian outback. He teams up with The Girl, of course -- not once in a series like this does the guy team up with a guy. But hey, Feldman is cute, it's Australian and there's paranormal.
Prologue: An old guy walks through the dark by a gigantic baobab and into a circle of giant termite mounds. Suddenly he is illuminated by light -- from above! He runs, stumbles, falls, screams. Abducted by aliens? I'll bet it's just a tease.
Scene 1: Andy (Ben) drives through the outback on the wrong side of the road, almost hitting a cop car! The lady cop makes it very, very clear that she wants to have sex with him. Her innuendos are extremely vulgar: "Breathe into my mouth, hot stuff...harder...harder..." Not The Girl: slightly overweight.
After she gives him her phone number and answers the question "Can I go now?" with that annoying "I don't know, can you?", he continues on his way through the desert to Bilgudgee, population 12. It has a park, a Chinese restaurant, and a pub in what looks like an old garage. A community board advertises trivia night and "Outback UFO Tours," hosted by the guy who was abducted by aliens earlier: "guaranteed sightings!"
It's Andy's dad with a new scam!
A race car zooms in, almost hitting him. Resident #1 is the lady who runs the pub/hotel.
Not the Girl: middle-aged.
She wants to know why Jimmy (Tony Briggs), Resident #2, isn't tending the bar. A Catholic priest, he's trying to take confession behind a curtain.
20% of Australians are Catholic, but of course on tv it's almost everybody. Resident #3, a German-speaking guy named Cedric, doesn't mind: he has nothing to confess.
Andy claims that he came to town for the UFO tour, run by Hugo...not mentioning that Hugo is his dad.
They haven't seen him in a few weeks, but they take Andy to his house -- horribly run-down, with a lot of alien memorabilia. Nobody home. Why not just say you're his son? Then you could go inside and investigate.
Scene 2: The Sundew Caravan and Campground. A caravan is a trailer in the U.S. Usually you bring your own to the campground, but sometimes you can rent them.
Andy goes to the office-trailer and asks Residents #4 and #5, a lesbian couple or mother-daughter, if they've seen Hugo. No, they don't speak with him, because "Mom's a drama queen."
Next Resident #6, a bearded guy with a neck brace (Rick Donald), wonders if he's an FBI agent. Andy says no, but the guy doesn't believe him, thinks he's a suspect, and starts yelling "I won't go down for this!"
Um...Australia is rather out of their jurisdiction. Maybe he's with the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, ASIO.Left: Rick Donald's backside
Residents #7 and #8, an older guy with muscles (Steve Le Marquand), and his young wife or daughter, tell him that Hugo is a pain in the arse, but that's part of his charm.
Left: Steve Le Marquand frontal
So when is Andy going to meet the Girl of His Dreams? He hasn't even been identified as heterosexual yet; that usually happens by Minute 2. Could he be....no way. I absolutely am not going to get my hopes up.
More after the break
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