It started with one TikTok user making a joke that they got off a plane five years in the future, then another made the same joke, and another, until this idea spread exponentially and virtually everyone was talking about the show Manifest, with its current three seasons having been recently added to Netflix.
So, what is this show everyone seems to be talking about, and is it worth watching? Manifest follows the mysterious Flight 828, which vanished and reappeared to the outside world five years after the plane originally took off. The passengers have not aged a day, and now they are experiencing dawning super-human abilities—not flying or teleportation, but rather an interconnected sixth-sense that allows them to telepathically communicate with each other and predict the future. As the passengers try to adapt to their returned life and altered states, they stop crime, save lives, and discover how intertwined their lives are. This show with a more-or-less unique premise is filled with mystery, crazy twists and turns, and is definitely worth a watch.
However, Manifest is far from perfect. The storylines are inconsistent, and the writers pack so many new events into each season that they seem to forget about some of them. *Spoiler Alert* What happened to the scientist kidnapped by the pilot when he stole a plane? The pilot appears at the very end of Season Three, but where’s the scientist? And what about all of those unconscious passengers rescued from the government lab who would all randomly spasm at the same time? Or Lourdes, Michaela’s best friend who married her former fiancé, Jared? Where did she go? The show seems to be more focused on the future than the past, and in the process of giving the audience shocking new events, forgets to resolve older problems.
What does the show do right? Emotional storylines, unexpected twists, and an organic ability to constantly raise the stakes. What’s going to happen on June 2nd, 2024—the Death Date? Sure, *Spoiler Alert* Zeke might have been able to avoid his death date, but can the rest of the survivors? Lots of TikToks will be created on that day making a joke that they survived, I’m sure, but this potentially finite date for the series is a perfect way to hook viewers—we are dying (no pun intended) to know what will happen.
The show’s biggest strength is the first few episodes. Manifest enters this fantastical world slowly, with characters who were not passengers on the plane being just as skeptical as the viewers, which allows the viewers—after the first few episodes—to buy into the plot and suspend their disbelief. Without this careful entry into fantasy and the supernatural, the show would seem inauthentic and would have most likely been cancelled after its first season.
Manifest was, however, cancelled after its third season. It left off with an astounding cliffhanger, and still very few answers. Going back to how TikTok introduced the show to thousands, and got Manifest in the Top 10 Most Watched Shows on Netflix a few weeks ago, this huge surge in viewership has led Netflix to pick up the show for a fourth and final season! It will be amazing to see how these storylines finally resolve—the Season 3 finale introduced way too much new information to just end the show there. Fans can sleep a bit easier knowing we will at least have some conclusion to the mystery that is Flight 828.
For others like myself who found Manifest from TikTok and were desperate for more after the first two seasons on Netflix—there is more! Season 3 recently aired in June 2021, and is available on Netflix, NBC, and Hulu. So, get binging, and let your friends know what episode you’re watching on BingeRoom!