You’re not watching it. And you should be. There are things that go bump in the night.

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There are specific kinds of shows that work for specific kinds of people. One of the most popular formats to emerge in the last two decades was the “mystery box” format. In television, a mystery box show is any show that starts with a lot of mysteries up front. A mystery isn’t any good without people to explore them, so mystery box shows often feature a diverse cast and complex plot that not only explores the mysteries of the show but also the relationships between the people in that show. Very often, people will be having to deal with each other while tugging on the ends of different strings that could unravel the mystery.

This format was popularized by LOST, one of the most influential shows in television history. To recap, in that show, passengers aboard an airliner crashed on an island. That island inexplicably had Egyptian statues, polar bears, shadow monsters . . . You name it, and the island probably had it. And those mysteries were explored by beloved cast members such as Jack, Sawyer, Kate, and others. They argued, fell in love, and did their best to escape from an island that didn’t want to let them go.

Now, listen to the premise of FROM. People from throughout America inexplicably end up detoured while driving and end up in a small town in the Midwest that they can never escape. That town is populated by monsters that hunt them in the night, mysterious totems that offer the people protection, jukeboxes that turn on despite there being no electricity in the town. And the mystery behind the two is explored by beloved cast members such as Boyd, Jim, and Fatima. They argue, fall in love, and do their best to escape from a town that won’t let them go.

The setup is similar in part because the producers of the show, Jack Bender and Jeff Pinker, were also producers on LOST. Let’s set aside LOST, though, because FROM is its own beast. I think it’s best to start with the setting. The shift to a small, dilapidated town immediately has consequences for the tone of the show. It’s a place where the local painting and wood paneling is slowly rotting away, and where the local swing set is rusty and falling apart. This is a world where everything is used; nothing feels polished. Worse, the entire town is surrounded by woods as far as the eye can see. In a single scene, you feel as if you’ve been transported to a world where only depression can exist. Nothing feels modern. It’s a backwater town cut off from society. Those towns exist in real life, and FROM truly captures the feeling of being in the middle of nowhere. The catch, of course, is that you can’t leave.

Anyone choosing to try and leave town ends up looping back into the town. Being stuck, though, is not the worst of everyone’s problems. When they’re not struggling to put together enough food to survive or arguing with each other, the townsfolk are busy trying to survive the horrible monsters that lurk in the woods. Every night, anybody caught outside after dark has a high chance of being slaughtered in some of the most brutal ways possible. This is not a place you want to live, and yet these people are trapped. It would be a hopeless place except, of course, that someone has risen to the occasion to give these people. That brings us to the characters.

FROM has a diverse, ensemble cast with lots of strong performances. However, the story is, at its core, the tale of two men. Boyd Stevens is the appointed sheriff of the town, a man who keeps law and order while making sure that everyone is indoors before nighttime. Boyd’s been around for a while and its clear from how everyone reacts to him that he’s the central pillar keeping the entire town standing. Just how important he is is explored as the first season unwinds, but even from the start, it’s clear that he’s one of the most respected individuals to have ever arrived.

The second man at the center of this story is Jim Matthews. More accurately, it could be said that Matthews and his family form the second major character of the story. Jim and his wife, Tabitha, are on a vacation when they find themselves trapped in town along with their son and daughter, Ethan and Julie. I group the Matthews family together because each one of them becomes pretty important to the story, pretty quickly. In fact, each one of them starts to tug at different threads regarding the mystery of why they’re trapped. Jim takes center stage as an engineer devising a way to communicate with the outside world. However, by season two, each other member of the family is exploring a different side of the mystery. Whether that means talking with psychics, drawing visions of what’s to come, or exploring monster dens, every member of the Matthews family gets time in the spotlight.

It’s impossible to cover just how wide the cast is. You have Fatima, the positive, bohemian type woman who keeps the positive vibes flowing around town. There’s Kenny, all around good guy and deputy to Boyd. There’s another newcomer, Jade, who is a genius scientist trying to save everyone with his technological know how. Then there’s Donna, arguably the third most important person on the show who has, inexplicably, been excluded from exploring the mysteries around town. In many ways, she’s just as important as Boyd.

And because you have such a dense cast, you have lots of time to explore the relationships between characters in between the moments when the plot is moving forward. This is where you can make your own judgement call about whether you will like the show or not. If you need a show that’s driving full force toward resolving its plot at all times, then FROM is not for you. There are very, very intense and scary stretches of the show. However, between them, there is the daily tension that rises between people. Fathers argue with sons, husbands with wives, and these people live under the daily pressures of being trapped with no hope of rescue. When things go tragically wrong and citizens are slaughtered in the night, those tensions rise even higher.

So if you don’t have the patience to sit through the personal drama that exists between these people, you won’t enjoy the show as much. Just the same way as Sawyer, Kate, Locke, and Jack always argued and debated how to move forward, so do the townsfolk. People have preexisting problems with each other that the Matthews family finds itself having to negotiate. And not every episode touches on the overarching plot. In Season One, there’s a good stretch toward the middle dedicated toward really setting up each character and their relationship to the larger town.

But that’s what makes the tense times so tragic. You actually care about the characters once the violence begins. Whether someone dies or is simply left hurting from all of the violence they’re surrounded by, you care. The pacing isn’t always perfect, and the producers are clearly moving along LOST levels of pacing with regard to how they split up a larger plot problem with interpersonal drama. Yet, these characters are very entertaining and contrast against one another in ways that lead to incredible stretches of conversation. And then, not long after, monsters are springing from the forests and phantom ballerinas are dancing through homes while ravens circle the skies.

FROM is available on MGM Plus.