Manifest Review: A Frustrating and Disappointing Netflix Sci-Fi Drama

There’s a show on Netflix called Manifest. The synopsis was intriguing: a plane takes off from Jamaica and disappears, only to land at JFK five and a half years later. For the passengers, the flight was uneventful. For the rest of the world, they vanished. Time moved on. They didn’t. I sat down and watched it. The first few episodes drew me in, and then—somewhere near the end of season one—I realized I was being manipulated; not by the plot, but by the show itself.

I’ve been in a controlling relationship before; it was one of the darkest periods of my life. My ex was a master manipulator, someone who knew exactly how to create co-dependence and keep it alive. Manifest pulled the same $hit on me. Once I started watching, it was hard to stop. When season four, part one, dropped last year, I realized I hadn’t finished season three. Or maybe I had blocked it out. I picked up where I left off, and the anxiety came rushing back. Watching Manifest made me feel trapped. It’s hard to explain exactly how, but I’ll try.

Manifest is an unambiguously terrible sci-fi drama that I am compelled to sit through because the core premise is just good enough to keep me wondering. It’s like Stockholm Syndrome—blaming myself for my abuser’s abuse. The show is so poorly executed, I genuinely don’t understand how it earned five seasons. The writing is abhorrent. Nearly every episode features long stretches of emotionless drama wedged between scenes of situational gravity. Characters stand around delivering bizarre dialogue while the world—sometimes literally falls apart around them.

One scene stands out: three undead meth heads holding guns on the heroes’ children. Meanwhile, the heroes, searching the forest for their kidnapped kids, stop to argue about whether they can trust each other. I’m watching, thinking, “Can this conversation not wait?” Manifest manufactures urgency and then immediately undermines it. If your characters don’t take the stakes seriously, why should I? And when the next crisis hits, which is always seconds away, I’m already checked out. The drama is thoughtlessly conscripted. Every conversation ends in unnecessary, overwrought emotion. If the acting were halfway decent, maybe it could carry the weight. But the acting is cringeworthy at best.

There are a few decent performances, but only in comparison to the rest. Zeke (Matt Long) gives the most consistently decent performance. Young Cal (Jack Messina) shows real potential. Angela (Holly Taylor) has her moments. And Ben Stone (Josh Dallas) finally figures out how to act in season four, part two. I saw more from him in that stretch than in any season before. I wish I could say more about the acting, but Manifest leans heavily on its cast—and the casting agents should’ve been taken out back and shot, along with the directors.

The direction is unspeakable. Which is to say, there is none. I’ve never seen a show do such a poor job of progressing a story forward. The directors merely command the viewer to feel something—usually through extended, unnecessary drama—but never earn it. There’s no authentic character development. Characters reach conclusions based on little or no information. Their logic is so contrived, it’s mind-blowing. And people don’t talk in the way the show is scripted. They don’t make the assumptions this dialogue requires. It’s not just unrealistic—it’s alien.

I watched every episode of every season. I was taken aback by how awful Manifest was, and so I had to write about it. I originally posted this before season four, part two was released. I felt obligated to see it through. If you haven’t watched Manifest and you’re reading this, the best part of the series is the first two episodes and the last episode. Watch those three, and you’ll have a solid hour and a half of decent television. Try to watch the whole thing, and once you start, you won’t be able to stop—and you’ll hate nearly every moment of it.