Tangled Web Team Reviews Indie Web Series 7p10e:

4.25 CLICKS   
(out of 5)

7p10e is a scripted romantic comedy following two people getting to know each other from across the country via four minute skype dates every night. –  Watch 7p10e here…

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” 7p10e is wildly inventive and wildly touching… its most impressive feat is being so unpretentiously, gut-punchingly moving. ” Read Samara’s full review…

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“Universal, innovative, and sustainable on a next-to-nothing budget, 7p10e is what web series are made of. ” Read Erin’s full review…

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“Watch this show. Giggle, blush, be creative, be joyful, have hope, and ring in the New Year with love and goats.”  Read Jacqui’s full review…

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“There are real sparks between series creator Avital Ash and her co-star Chris Alvarado.” Read Abdi’s full review…

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7p10e- JACQUI REGO – 4.0 Clicks 

“In 19^thcentury Russia we write letters,” is a lyric from the hit electro-pop opera Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812.  The need for connection has been with us a long time. In 21^st century U.S.A. we Skype, we write e-mails, we send texts and the timelessness of companionship and hope of love are alive and well. The short webisodes in 7P/10E are deliciously bite-sized with a growing batch of synchronicity and endearment between bi-coastal love interests Patrick (Chris Alvarado) and Cora (Avital Ash). The two characters are of our time but their joyful discoveries about each other are universal.

January 1^st, 2014 a mutual friend sets up Patrick and Cora because both are “filthy stinking single”.  They resolve to Skype every day for the rest of the month at 7P/10E time which lends itself to the title of the digital series. The7P/10E website is low-key with quirky e-mails revealing inside jokes (goats!) to fill in the communication gaps between episodes and adds a layer of believability to Cora and Patrick’s relationship. The show was shot to hit specific beats, but without a full script sometimes the ride’s a bit bumpy. Cora’s parental backstory is heavy handed and the conflict bubbling up on day 26 shows the brushstrokes in Patrick’s character arch.

Having said that 7P/10E is so much fun all is forgiven. Watch this show. Giggle, blush, be creative, be joyful, have hope, and ring in the New Year with love and goats. Read more reviews by Jacqui…

7p10e- SAMARA BAY – 5.0 Clicks

7p10e is what the web is for.  After watching a slew of high production value, big studio-backed digital series, any web show aficionado could be forgiven for getting a tad jaded.  Too much flash, not enough spark.

This series is the antidote.

Actors Avital Ash and Chris Alvarado (as Cora and Patrick) put on a show that feels nothing like a show; rather we’re invited into the intimate, raw, optimistic, fun, scary, tentative beginnings of a relationship conducted entirely over the web, and offered the opportunity to witness humanity in its quietest, most mundane moments, when the courage to show up and to be vulnerable is the greatest challenge of all.  What starts out as a silly, spontaneous New Years’ resolution between two long-distance strangers with merely a TV-star friend in common and some Skype accounts turns into much more: a referendum on the power of being real.  The format feels real (voyeuristic, in fact) and the daring does too – will they sabotage their delicate, sweet, growing thing like we crazy kids can do, or will they find the grace to help it grow?

The show doesn’t all work perfectly – some of Patrick’s spirals into recalcitrance feel forced, and the particulars of their lives are underexplored — but 7p10e is wildly inventive and wildly touching.  And though it may change the whole game, its most impressive feat is being so unpretentiously, gut-punchingly moving. These artists created a show on no budget, trusting that good stories are good stories, and made fire. Read more reviews by Samara…

7p10e– ERIN STEGEMAN –  4.0 Clicks

Universal, innovative, and sustainable on a next-to-nothing budget, 7p10e is what web series are made of.  A solid, well-executed concept, and thoughtfully acted to the point of questioning whether or not they even are, this sweet, ultra-modern romantic comedy breathes life into a genre that’s drowned itself in predictability.

High praises for actor-writer-directors Kyle McCullough, Avital Ash (Cora), and Chris Alvarado (Patrick), whose vision expatiates from Day 1 to 31 (the episodes are titled by numbers representing their resolution to speak every day in January).  For every over-photoshopped, high gloss, not-a-hair-out-of-place shiny detail we’re used to seeing in a traditional rom com, these three respond as equally detailed in raw realism.  Everything from the half lived-in apartment sets (which look eerily similar to my rat-infested NYC apartment from my early 20s) to the unbrushed hair and appropriately-timed facial hair scruff, to the subtle details of the Skype glitches – it’s crafted like a 1000 piece puzzle done upside-down.  And it works.  Imagine mumblecore, but, like…with a point you actually understand.

While the initial interactions between Cora and Patrick are charming, the nervous laughter and superficial conversation grows a bit wearing in it’s 4 minute space.  It’s not until “Day 16”, when the series grows a pair (similarly so does Patrick) and begins to run with you on a sweet and scary journey.  This series takes an incredible risk on “Day 26”, which arguably may have gone too far to support the secret “Day 32” episode, but it’s definitely the “hook, line, and sinker” moment.  Whatever your time zone, you’ll have no problem keeping the resolution to tune in with them until the very end. Read more reviews by Erin…

7p10e- ABDI NAZEMIAN – 4.0 Clicks

The digital world is bursting with web series attempting to emulate bigger budget television shows and movies, with decidedly mixed results. Web series (at least the ones that aren’t on Netflix and Amazon) are still low-budget affairs, and the best of them embrace their financial limitations by creating stories that are served and enhanced by those restrictions. 7p10e is a perfect example. The concept is simple and sweet. A man and a woman are set up, but one lives in Los Angeles while the other lives in New York. Their solution: nightly Skype calls for one month. The creators take the beats of a romantic comedy – meeting the friends, meeting the parents, awkward first sex – and apply them touchingly to this virtual relationship.

Though some episodes soar higher than others, I never doubted the authenticity of the relationship depicted here. Ultimately, romantic comedies rise and fall based on the chemistry of its two leads, and there are real sparks between series creator Avital Ash and her co-star Chris Alvarado. Their rapport is so organic that you might mistake this for a documentary. It’s not. It’s a carefully plotted story that accepts all the limitations of a homegrown web series – low budget, one location, short running time – and uses them to tell a winning and complex love story for our time. Read more reviews by Abdi…