Station Eleven is an American post-apocalyptic dystopian fiction television miniseries created by Patrick Somerville based on the 2014 novel of the same name by Emily St. John Mandel. The miniseries premiered on HBO Max on December 16, 2021, and ran for ten episodes until January 13, 2022.
It received critical acclaim and was nominated for seven Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for Himesh Patel.
Twenty years after a flu pandemic resulted in the collapse of civilization, a group of survivors who make their living as traveling performers encounter a violent cult led by a man whose past is unknowingly linked to a member of the troupe.
In February 2015, producer Scott Steindorff acquired the TV and film rights to the novel. The series was ordered by the streaming service HBO Max on June 25, 2019, and created by Patrick Somerville, with Hiro Murai attached as a director. Both were executive producers, alongside Scott Delman, Dylan Russell, Scott Steindorff, Jessica Rhoades, Jeremy Podeswa, and Nate Matteson. The miniseries premiered on December 16, 2021. Podeswa, Helen Shaver, and Lucy Tcherniak also directed episodes.
Somerville made several major changes from the original novel's plot, such as creating a more significant relationship between Jeevan and Kirsten, and giving Tyler the Prophet a less villainous presence and a redemptive arc. In addition, the Canadian setting of the majority of the novel is replaced with an American setting. Though much of the Year Zero setting in the original novel is St. John-Mandel's native Toronto, Somerville moved the action to his own native Chicago. Ironically, due to the COVID pandemic, shooting was moved from Chicago to Mississauga, a city bordering Toronto.
In October 2019, Mackenzie Davis, Himesh Patel and David Wilmot were cast to star in the series. Matilda Lawler would be added in November 2019. In January 2020, Gael GarcÃÂa Bernal was cast in a recurring role. In February 2020, Danielle Deadwyler joined the cast in a recurring capacity. Nabhaan Rizwan and Philippine Velge would join as series leads in March 2020. In April 2021, Daniel Zovatto and Lori Petty joined the cast in lead roles, while Andy McQueen, David Cross, Enrico Colantoni, Julian Obradors, and Deborah Cox joined the cast in recurring roles. Luca Villacis, Prince Amponsah, Dylan Taylor, Joe Pingue, Maxwell McCabe-Lokos, Ajahnis Charley, Milton Barnes and Kate Moyer joined the cast in recurring capacities in June 2021.
Filming began in Chicago in January 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, production moved to Mississauga on February 1, 2021, and concluded on July 9, 2021.
The first three episodes premiered on HBO Max on December 16, 2021.
The miniseries was released on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and DVD on February 21, 2023, by Paramount Home Entertainment.
On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 98% approval rating based on 57 reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "Station Eleven rewards patient viewers with an insightful and thematically rich assertion thatâÂÂeven in the post-apocalypseâÂÂthe show must go on." On the review aggregator Metacritic, the series has a weighted average score of 81 out of 100 based on 27 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
Jen Chaney, in Vulture, writes of the show's theme: "Text from MirandaâÂÂs comic, which was passed on to young Kirsten in the early days of the pandemic, echoes throughout the episodes as though its verses are biblical. 'I remember damage' is a line uttered more than once; 'I donâÂÂt want to live the wrong life and then die' is another... a reflection of how fiction and art can feel as though theyâÂÂve been tailored specifically to the present and the contours of oneâÂÂs own private heart. ... Music, theater, and literature can provide both an escape from our circumstances and a way of processing them that becomes forever intertwined with those circumstances."