The Booth At The End
| The Booth at the End | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Genre | Fantasy Drama |
| Created by | Christopher Kubasik |
| Written by | Christopher Kubasik |
| Directed by |
Jessica Landaw (Season 1) Adam Arkin (Season 2) |
| Starring | Xander Berkeley |
| Theme music composer | Tree Adams (Season 1), John Swihart (Season 2) |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 10 |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) |
Stephen A. Cohen Noel Bright Lou Fusaro John H. Radulovic Adam Arkin |
| Editor(s) |
David Dawes Jessica Landaw Richard Choi |
| Distributor | Vuguru |
| Release | |
| Original network | FX |
| Original release | 08/27/2010 |
| External links | |
| Website | |
The Booth At The End is a 2010 fantasy drama series created by Christopher Kubasik and starring Xander Berkeley, which was originally produced for the US cable channel FX. Season 1 began on August 27, 2010 on the Canadian network City. As of summer 2015, the series has had two seasons, each consisting of 5 twenty-three-minute episodes. The first season was directed by Jessica Landaw, and the second by Adam Arkin (who also co-produced).
The series follows the fates of an apparently random group of strangers who each enter into a Faustian pact with a mysterious figure, the Man (Berkeley), who they believe possesses the power to grant any wish, in return for which they must carry out a task he assigns them - hence the series tagline, "How far would you go to get what you want?" The series is notable for its ingenious mise-en-scene, in which the dramatic action is entirely conveyed through a series of conversations between the Man and his clients, which all take place in the eponymous "booth at the end" of an archetypal American diner.
In the first episode, we meet the Man (Berkeley), an anonymous, morally ambiguous agent who habitually occupies the booth at the end in a classic 1950s-style diner in an unnamed city (a fictional version of Los Angeles). In each episode, a character enters the diner, and after giving a passphrase, they beg the Man to grant them a wish, typically something of a life-changing or redemptive character. The Man consults a large book, in which he occasionally makes notes, and which evidently provides both the nature of his clients's tasks, and the progress they make towards its completion, after which their wish will be granted.
The clients' tasks range from the mundane to the monstrous - in one case, an elderly woman begs the Man to restore the mental clarity of her ailing husband, who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, but in return, he orders her to construct a bomb and detonate it in a crowded family restaurant. The characters report back on their progress to the Man, who evidently knows if they are lying to him, and they bargain with him as they become increasingly desperate. These exchanges take place entirely in the diner. The Book used by the Man emerges as a character in its own right, as does the waitress in the first season, whose character develops significantly in the second series. The various fates of the clients at first seem to be unconnected, but as the series progress we discover that, either because of the Man's special knowledge, or through his actions, their fates become interwoven.
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Wikipedia