Contains mild spoilers!

2021/05/04

Not sure if there is any interest in this blog! The Lottery was cancelled after only one season of 10 episodes. When I watched it back in 2014 for the first time, I thought it was an interesting premise, liked the actors who were going to be the lead characters. Thought Marley Shelton was great in The Eleventh Hour. I really like Athena Karkanis whom I first saw in The Lottery but later on also on The Expanse and Manifest. Shelley Con I just watched her in 2011-2012 in Terra Nova as Dr. Elizabeth Shannon. And of course I just had a Terra Nova rewatch in March-April of this year.

The short description: Set in a world destined for extinction as women have stopped having children. When remarkably 100 embryos are successfully fertilized, a national lottery is held to decide the surrogates.

I’ve read some comments that the science is bad, this might be true but I am a sucker for government conspiracies and this show has lots of it! I love the politics behind it, you can imagine it is happening up to a point. Dramatized of course but still, I relish it. Preferably with a SCI-FI twitch to it.  Stargate SG-1 did also have an episode about fertility problems, episodes “2010” and “2001” but of course there was an Alien species which was doing this so they could concur Earth without firing a shot.

Lead Characters:

Marely Shelton plays Dr. Alison Lennon, she works in a lab trying to fertilize eggs for some time now because it’s about 6 years the last baby was born. Somehow she manages to fertilize 100 eggs but she cannot seem to reproduce this! From that moment on the government steps in to control the situation. Alison gets fired right away from her own lab and doesn’t have access to her work anymore. Kyle Walker (Michael Graziadei) is one of the last men who became a parent. He has a son, Elvis is 6 years old and when Kyle is late to pick him up from school, his kid is taken away from him. He was a single parent for a while now, his wife has left him and his son. Vanessa Keller (Athena Karkanis) is the Chief of Staff of the President. She comes up with the lottery where 200 women participate and where 100 women will “win” an egg. She and Alison mostly work together, she seems okay and has helped Alison a number of times. For me she was the spill of the show.

Darius Hayes (Martin Donovan), he has other plans with the 100 eggs, he wants more control, he thinks the lottery is not the right way to go, he thinks the women who get an egg implanted in them, need to be controlled for the rest of their lives. In the viewers’ eyes he is the villain, but of course he believes he is doing the right thing for his country. President Westwood (Yul Vazquez), at first he just seems to be a president who’s popularity is declining and the lottery seems to be his back to be more popular. But the president has a big footprint in this whole crisis.

Gabrielle (Shelley Conn), she is the presidents wife and I believe it takes 4 or 5 episodes before the actually speaks. She just stood there, looking pretty! But from then on her role in it all became bigger and she also had her own agenda. James (David Alpay), he works together with Alison in the same lab. At first he stays on as she gets fired. Later they become allies again in the search for answers how the fertility crisis came to be.

It has some interesting SCI-FI/Fantasy actors to play recurring characters or guest spots. Genelle Williams from Warehouse 13 who played Camille, an old girlfriend of Kyle. J. August Richard from Angel, played Nathan Mitchell, lover of Vanessa. Steven Culp (Star Trek: Enterprise, Revolution) who plays the Vice President.

I find it hard to name one or two episodes which I find the best because it’s a continues story, one story and I did not have one episodes which I particularly bad. I think The Lottery is binge-worthy, if you watch this in a short period of time, I think you’ll probably appreciate it more than when you wants it once a week for 10 weeks.

Final Word:

I know it’s not a fantastic TV show, but it’s entertaining, especially if you like government conspiracies and beautiful women! 😊 I don’t know if it’s easy to find on a streaming service, it hasn’t been released on DVD as far as I know. This is my first rewatch, not sure if there will be a 2^nd rewatch but if so it will at least take another 7 years.