Scientifically, The Tomorrow People makes less sense than the recent government shutdown. I believe the writers took the ever popular it's-science-fiction-so-it-doesn't-have-to-make-sense approach to evolution and then did a line of coke. It's the only explanation for how the very next step in human evolution (dubbed homo superior . . . gag) are CW hotties with ALL OF THE POWERS!
You heard me. The impeccably manicured subway dwellers call them the three Ts: telepathy, teleportation, and telekinesis. Basically, every one of the Tomorrow People is an X-Men team (but none of them have Wolverine because he's running a school now and ain't nobody got time for that). The hardest thing for me to accept is that the very next step in human evolution is so comprehensive. Not only do they get all of the powers, they also have a gene mutation that prevents them from killing. It's like 300 years of societal evolution in one handy DNA strand.
I'm going to skate right past the plot holes of the pilot because it's not fair to dwell on those when they have further episodes to fill them in. And they had better fill them in because a blue whale could get lost in some of them. Instead, let's move on to the characters.
Stephen is our protagonist, and while he has the patented CW broody face, he's not bad. He provides a good balance of being a pissed-off teen and a weary possible schizophrenic. However, Steven didn't impress me as a main character until the end. Sure, he has powers that no one else has seen (homo superior deluxe?), but that's a pretty predictable twist. The hero is always just a little bit different or more powerful or whatever.
It wasn't until Stephen was faced with his major dilemma--join the rebel strangers or protect his punishing mom who makes him feel guilty for being schizophrenic (as far as she knows)--that he became interesting and my interest in the show was suddenly piqued. How many protagonists decide to work for the evil scientist trying to exterminate his kind in the first episode? That's usually a season one cliffhanger! It's almost enough for me to forgive the predictable and cliched every-other-aspect-of-the-pilot.
So, pretty people doing improbable things along predictable story lines . . . it's not bad for that saturated genre, especially with a twist I can get behind. As long as Stephen continues to not suck, I'm pleasantly interested.
You heard me. The impeccably manicured subway dwellers call them the three Ts: telepathy, teleportation, and telekinesis. Basically, every one of the Tomorrow People is an X-Men team (but none of them have Wolverine because he's running a school now and ain't nobody got time for that). The hardest thing for me to accept is that the very next step in human evolution is so comprehensive. Not only do they get all of the powers, they also have a gene mutation that prevents them from killing. It's like 300 years of societal evolution in one handy DNA strand.
I'm going to skate right past the plot holes of the pilot because it's not fair to dwell on those when they have further episodes to fill them in. And they had better fill them in because a blue whale could get lost in some of them. Instead, let's move on to the characters.
Stephen is our protagonist, and while he has the patented CW broody face, he's not bad. He provides a good balance of being a pissed-off teen and a weary possible schizophrenic. However, Steven didn't impress me as a main character until the end. Sure, he has powers that no one else has seen (homo superior deluxe?), but that's a pretty predictable twist. The hero is always just a little bit different or more powerful or whatever.
It wasn't until Stephen was faced with his major dilemma--join the rebel strangers or protect his punishing mom who makes him feel guilty for being schizophrenic (as far as she knows)--that he became interesting and my interest in the show was suddenly piqued. How many protagonists decide to work for the evil scientist trying to exterminate his kind in the first episode? That's usually a season one cliffhanger! It's almost enough for me to forgive the predictable and cliched every-other-aspect-of-the-pilot.
So, pretty people doing improbable things along predictable story lines . . . it's not bad for that saturated genre, especially with a twist I can get behind. As long as Stephen continues to not suck, I'm pleasantly interested.