Review: Snow on the Farm (2022 Web Series)

I was recently approached by screenwriter Mary Robbins to see if I would write a review of her five-episode web series Snow on the Farm, released on YouTube in February 2022. She thought that I would enjoy it after reading my thoughts on The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, which caught my interest right away. I agreed to write the review (and told her that I would give my honest thoughts, which Robbins said she was fine with) and so here it is:

Snow on the Farm follows Snowden Bishop, a recent university graduate planning to spend the summer with her boyfriend Kirt on his family's farm. With his family away, she sees it as the perfect chance to get to spend the summer alone with him, running the farm together. However, once she's there, things turn out not to be as romantic as she'd anticipated. However, when she meets Paolo, a kind chef, she thinks that perhaps her summer plans are about to change...

I have mixed feelings about this show, with the negative ones leaning towards Snowden as a character and Episode 5, the final episode of the show titled "Someday my prince will come?". I'll go into more details with those in a bit though, as I first want to talk about what I liked about the show, because there is a lot of good here.

While there is undeniably a low budget here, that does not mean the series is lazy or bad. The team behind this clearly worked hard and did a good job putting this all together. It was undoubtedly a meaningful project to its creators and stars. The farm is an impressive location and there are some really nice birds eye view shots in the first episode. However, there as there are a couple of flaws with the cinematography - more consideration with lighting (particularly for exterior scenes, either while filming or during editing) could have helped improve the look of the production quality. There is also a shot in Episode 1 where Snowden is climbing down some stairs and I can't tell if it's due to the angle or the footage being slowed down, but she looks like she's falling down them rather than climbing down, which looks a little odd. Additionally, there are a couple of times where the sound editing is a little off, also in Episode 1, when Snowden is narrating in voiceover and she passes a caretaker (or groundskeeper, to my American readers) who is raking leaves. The sound of these leaves, while well-timed in motion with raking, are too loud to the point where I struggled to focus on what Snowden was saying, even upon rewinding a few times. However, these are nit-picks and a lot of the time, the editing is fine.

The cast, for the most part, are also very good. I was a bit worried after learning that the star of the series, Addison Robbins who plays Snowden, was Mary's daughter. I was terrified I might have some not so nice things to say not only about her creative project, but also about her own child. Thankfully, it hasn't come to that. Addison manages to play a rather thoughtless and selfish character with good humour and a sweet naivety at times I'm not sure other actors could have given her.

In episode 5, Snowden breaks the fourth wall for the first and only time in the show. While the moment is tonally out of place in contrast to the rest of the show, I forgive it because of Addison's delivery. I would like see her experiment with some more light comedy in the future, as I think she has a good knack for it. Additionally, Addison has to interact with the other characters almost entirely on a one-to-one basis for the entire series, as she is the only character to appear in every scene. She has good chemistry with her co-stars and works well with everyone to establish their character relationships naturally, which was nice to see.

I also really liked Mario Peguero as Paolo, who managed to play the character with charm and warm sincerity - as the viewer, it was easy to understand why Snowden was drawn to him so quickly. Clara Gamsu as Snowden's long-suffering friend Jenna is also good and alongside Paolo, is probably the most likeable character here. Unfortunately, doesn't get too much to work with, which is a shame, as I do think Snowden could have benefited with a more morally-centred character to work off of.

I struggled with Snowden as a character. I just couldn't work out why we should be rooting for her, when she was so flippant with everything and didn't know what she wanted. We only see her with characters she wants something from or who can help her in some way, so she comes across as very selfish. Her first day at the farm goes badly, so what does she do? Starts flirting with another guy she just met and lies to him, saying that Kirt is actually her brother when he asks about the farm, which she also claims to co-own for some reason. With such a short running time, this series doesn't get the chance - and simply chooses not to- redeem Snowden in any way or encourage her to mature, which is a bit frustrating to see. She gets humiliated a couple of times, but we don't get to see if or what she learned from those events.

One thing that really confused me, without going too much into spoilers, is that Snowden plans to stay with Kirt on his farm for the summer while his family are away, but when this doesn't work out, she is effectively left homeless. I found this really bizarre. All we hear of Kirt's family is that they're away for the summer in Europe. Snowden doesn't talk at the start of the summer about what will happen when they come back, so was she supposed to just move in with them? Did they know that? Kirt didn't even know she was arriving to be with him, at least not as early as she did. Does she even get on with his family or have any history with them? Also, Snowden was excited to have Kirt and the farm to herself for the summer, so if she wasn't staying with him after that, where was she supposed to go when the break ended? We know her mother is dead, but her father is never mentioned, so why wasn't he an option? If Kirt still lived with family, why couldn't she? A lot of people in their early twenties do.

Alternatively, why couldn't it have been established that she was supposed to move in with her friend Jenna after the farm trip, but had hoped she'd be asked to stay on the farm, or even that she just asked Kirt if she could live on the farm? If Snowden's living situation didn't become such a crucial point in the final two episodes, this might not have bothered me so much, but it just seems like this wasn't thought through.

Thinking about it now, I actually think it's kind of funny that Robbins compared Snow on the Farm to The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, when I think it's actually more similar to Bernie Su's other popular web series, Emma Approved. The character of Snowden actually had a lot of potential to be rather like Emma Woodhouse from that web series. Like Emma, when Snowden realises what she wants, she will go after it no matter the cost, although her approach can be naïve and land her in trouble later on. However, Emma had the advantage of more character and plot dynamics to bounce off of, which connected to her business and personal relationships, allowing her to grow when she realised she was compromising both of those. Snowden doesn't really know who she is and by the end of the series, she still doesn't know who she wants to be, so I don't really know what the audience can take from her, other than Addison's performance. Episode 5 doesn't help with this.

The episode, titled "One day my prince will come?" is one of the most bizarre experiences as a viewer that I have had for a long time. There is so much jam-packed into this episode and yet, there is so much left unexplained. There is no hint of future episodes that I can find anywhere and the title of the episode on YouTube states that is is episode "5 of 5", which suggests this is definitely the end. It was really jarring to me that this was the conclusion. After clashing with a certain character for the central three of the five episodes, they part ways on profoundly good terms considering the situation, which made me wonder why they couldn't have just communicated that well for the rest of the time we had seen them together. There is a reveal with another character that the audience already knew about, but Snowden didn't, which leads into the nice fourth wall break I mentioned above and is generally handled well. This is probably my favourite part of the episode. Jenna helps Snowden find a job, and here is where things take an abrupt turn. We pan away from Snowden and Jenna before leading into the final act of the episode, but for some reason, the muted pan-shot of them talking is sped up and it's a bit bizarre, though arguably this leads into the tone of the final act quite well:

I would love to talk about the final part of this episode, the note this series ends on. I want to avoid spoilers, so I implore you to watch it for yourself so that you may experience for yourself. To stay as spoiler free as possible, I will give a brief run-down of my essential thoughts:

Snowden shows up for a job interview. There is a strange echo effect on all of the characters voices, so I assumed that this was a dream sequence, but as far as I can tell, it's not because the series just abruptly ends and the characters still sound like this. This entire scene is in an almost entirely different reality to the rest of the series, in terms of events, style and writing. A character from an earlier episode is brought back as the person who is going to interview her and potentially be her boss, but it doesn't really work because apart from an awkward run-in they once shared, Snowden has no relationship with this character, therefore there aren't any stakes here. At worst, Snowden wouldn't have got the job and would have walked away cringing a bit, but at least she would have had an opportunity to learn and grow from that, which I think would have been good for her character. Additionally, if Snowden had been interviewed by someone else, she could have gotten the job and then been introduced to this other character as her new boss in a plot twist, thus giving her an actual consequence because she would have to face up to the tension with this character that was created in their first encounter on a daily basis, while trying to balance a new job. This also would have been a good way to have Snowden finally face up to her past mistakes and could have been the start of a growing point for her. That's not what they did though. The actual ending is far more abrupt.

The biggest problematic element for me is the theme change. It was so abrupt that I had to double check that the writers and director were all still the same people and to my shock - they were. There was no hint in the entire series that this is what we were being led to. It doesn't connect to the rest of the world that's been established and honestly, I felt a bit cheated out of a proper ending for this series. Either Snow on the Farm needed at least three more episodes to justify this change or it should have ended in a way that ties in to the rest of what we just watched. As it stands, it feels incomplete and it's a shame.

I'm not against the theme change itself at all. I think if it had been woven in with the rest of the series, it could have given it a fun twist. It's just the last minute introduction and how it affects the ending of the overall series that doesn't work for me, as it feels more like a gimmick instead of a fun addition.

The pacing of Snow on the Farm isn't the issue. I was very impressed at how coherently they were able to put together a story with the time they had (at least, for the first four episodes and honestly, I think Episode 3 could have easily been combined with 2 or 4). I appreciated how well they managed to establish the plot, the characters and their relationships with each other when the episodes (credits not included) are mostly under five minutes. With the particular ending we got though, the good job with the pacing we got for the first four episodes seemed to be undone with the finale, which again, is a shame.

In the end, I think the main problem with the series is that by the end of Episode 5, it was confirmed for me that, like Snowden, it didn't quite know what it wanted to be. It wasn't just the abrupt change in direction with the plot at the end of this episode, but little things sprinkled throughout. However, although the two main flaws are hard for me to look past, please don't dismiss this series. It's a great achievement for everyone involved to have been able to put together an independent project like this and they should be pleased. The dialogue is good, the locations are impressive and I think everyone involved has potential to go and make something bigger and better from here - my one request is that if you do, please make sure that you and your characters know what you're aiming for, stick by it and believe in it. I look forward to seeing you grow.

THE SCOREBOARD

Chick Flick Cliche Check List Elements: 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 13, 27, 32, 47, 53, 54, 55, 58, 59, 63, 64, 69,

Total: 17

Would I recommend this webseries? Ultimately, yes. I would really like to hear what others think of that ending.

Score: 6/10