The Fold: Non-Sexy Sci-Fi Softcore

Would it be possible to engineer a concept better suited to a web audience than a sci-fi porno? The Fold is the stuff of a Metafilter lurker’s wet dreams. It’s got gadgets, paranoia, time travel, nerdy girls in garter belts, and at least one Aspergers/ass burger joke. But its overall sensibility is less like your average web series than it is a clever spin on the kind of schlocky, sleazy, not-quite-intentional comedy reminiscent of late-night TV.

The first episode begins with two bored NASA workers picking up a signal from outer space that makes them uncontrollably hot for one another. Cut to a press conference, six months later, held to announce the debut of the Ferguson Time Machine, designed by an awkward young scientist named Cody Ferguson.

Ferguson’s father and CEO of the family business is oddly preoccupied with the notion that the first impulse of the general public will be to use the time machine for sexual tourism. “Do we really want our daughters fornicating with Homo Erectus?” he asks the assembled press. Little does he know that his son has been using the prototype to visit 15th century France for dalliances with Joan of Arc. Enter Stephanie, the company fixer, who puts her telepathic sense for sexual fetish to the service of her corporate maneuvers. A roundelay of sexual blackmail ensues.

Some of The Fold’s most interesting qualities might inevitably work against its success on the web. It seems to be narratively ambitious compared with most web series (although maybe too much so––I watched the first episode twice and still had some trouble putting together some of the plot threads). Its comic sensibility is full-on camp –– when you’re laughing, you’re usually laughing at someone –– and yet it seems to want us to unironically care about its heroes and hiss at its villains. And finally, and maybe most notably: The Fold is about sex — it’s completely clouded with it — and yet it’s not sexy. An erect penis makes a cameo less than two minutes in and there’s plenty of adult language and themes, but there’s no real action in the first episode at all. Will audiences be satisfied with sex as a set-up, or will they get frustrated and go looking for real porn?

Though actual view counts were unavailable, The Fold’s writer and co-creator Polly Frost told NewTeeVee that the first episode saw “way more traffic thank we’d anticipated our first couple of days.” That’s kind of a no-brainer: the trailer promised sex, and sex virtually guarantees excellent attendance. I’ll be tuning in for the next episode, but it remains to be seen if the average viewer will hook into The Fold’s soapy strangeness, or if they’ll dismiss it as a tease.