So I don't know about you guys, but I'm kind of hard pressed for something to watch on Netflix right about now. *raises shield to defend against House of Cards and Orange is the New Black recommendations* Jesus, you people are rabid, you know that? As I was saying, in scrolling through the endless grid of movie options, I saw a whole lot of stuff that looked to be incredibly not my cup of tea. Yea I judge books (well, movies and shows in this case, but whatever) by their covers, so what?
Then I stumbled across an apparent recent addition to the Netflix gallery, The Tomorrow People, which according to its description boxes was a show about psychis from the future who fight bad guys.
This grabbed me not just because of the premise, but because it was a premise I had just thought of that day. Basically my idea was that in the future, all of humanity evolved to gain various telepathic abilities as a result of a very widespread population shrinkage event. Hoping to prevent said cataclysm, a psyhic human journeys to the past to unlock earlier man's latent psychic potential, but he's a total jerk about it, so some of the new psychics have to learn how to deal with their abilities so they can tell him where to shove it.
And with that fresh idea in my mind, I'm wondering how The Tomorrow People compares. So I figured I'd give it a watch, and then write down what I think about it because why not. I'm a writer. I write things down.
[One Netflix binge later...]
Huh. Not what I was expecting. Good. But not what I was expecting. I should keep watching this so I can-
WHAT?!
...
I'M BUSY!
...
IT'S FOR AN ARTICLE!
...
NO, I'M NOT GETTING PAID, BUT-
...
OKAY, OKAY! I'M COMING!
[Several weeks, and an additional Netflix binge later to finish the thing off...]
Okay! I finished the entire first season of The Tomorrow People, and can now share my "after" thoughts on it. For starters, it turns out I was misled by the Netflix description. The show does not feature psychics from the future. Rather, it takes the X-Men route of the supernatural characters being "the next stage of human evolution," albeit with a bit more evolutionary sense to it.
Seriously, (cue sidebar) hasn't it ever struck anyone else as wierd that Marvel claims all of its mutants are born from the next stage of the evolutionary process of humanity, and that mutanthood is dictated by the X-gene? Because that doesn't really explain how they have such a wide range of abilities. Surely one mutated gene appearing in the human population would lead to a race of people with similar abilities, not a bunch of people with that many different abilities. Right? Or at least admit that the mutants aren't all the same species, and they all actually made evolutionary leaps in their own directions. Although really, that many organisms making that many evolutionary leaps in that many different directions in that short a span of time seems... impractical?
Ah who am I kidding, this is comic books we're talking about. Let's get back to the good stuff of shooting lases, punching bad guys, and having stupid amounts of fun!
I digress.
Yeah, it is a tad X-men-y (not an adjective but it is now) what with the super powered people being given the scientific name "homo superior", human evolution being used as an excuse, and there being serious tension between humans and mutants. And then towards the end we get a very clear Magneto type with his "Argh, we can never share this world with the humans, rah!" shtick.
Nevertheless, the show is pretty solid. The action's nice, the effects are good aside from one single solitary scene where a telekinetic raises the dinner glasses of everyone at the table in a toast (which by the way is kind of rude, taking the choice of raising the glass out of their hands.), and the writing is solid. Most of the characters are pretty believable and complex, with the possible exception of Kara who seemed to me to switch personalities as convenient to the plot a couple of times.
And then there were the sex scenes. I have sort of mixed feelings about them. On one hand, all of the involved parties are, to put it bluntly, incredibly good looking, and what's on screen is pretty steamy. That said, I can't help but wonder if the production crew might have caught wind that they might not be getting a second season and made a last ditch effort to save the show by injecting more sex into it, because it becomes a lot more frequent in later episodes and sometimes drew out longer than was necessary from a narrative standpoint.
TV/movie visual shorthand for sex is usually intense kissing, followed by removal shirts, hands roaming, then fall into bed and fade to black. The show, especially in later episodes would get to the fall into bed part, and then just linger on two people making out in their underwear in pre-foreplay to the degree that my reaction was usually along the lines of:
"These two are about to have sex aren't they? Oh, shirts are coming off, they totally are. They hit the bed... and we're not fading? ...still not fading? Wow. Okay, look, this is kind of hot, but I have family in the room right now, so I'm just going to pretend to look at my phone until this is over. Well maybe one more look. Okay, back to the phone. Done yet? Oh thank God, the plot to the rescue."
Which is not to give the false impression that this show is softcore porn. Far from it. This was probably something that happened... six times? In a twenty-two episode show? Way more than I'm used to, but I'm sure it's tame compared to some of the stuff out there. Still, I noticed it.
As I may have tipped off earlier, this show did not get a second season. I learned that information about halfway through, and was immediately worried that I was going to get a giant unresolved cliff hanger like what The Flash did to me a few months ago. So it was with fearful uncertainty that I approached the closing episodes, which proved quite an enjoyable ride, coming to a mostly satisfying conclusion.
There were a couple loose ends, but enough were tied to leave an overall satisfying conclusion while still offering up possibilities for the future. A future this show will never see, but still. Good work Tomorrow People. You were nothing like what I expected you would be, but you were an enjoyable romp. Give it a watch if you're looking for something to watch and have already seen Daredevil, The Flash, Doctor Who, Young Justice, and Arrow, which I have officially declared mandatory viewing for all of humanity.
Lil' Note:
Does anyone else find it funny that Robbie Amell is playing a character named "Stephen," which also happens to be the name of his cousin Stephen Amell? No? Just me? Aw.
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