Teen Wolf
I'm still surprised that I haven't written any Avengers fic (except a few short kink meme fills that weren't anything special) and I'm already losing my interest in that fandom. I dunno what's changed, but these days I don't seem to form lasting fannish attachments the way I did with Harry Potter, Smallville or Doctor Who. Instead, I keep going from one source material to the next.
My newest discovery is Teen Wolf, which has been on my radar as "that show with the gay gifs" for a while, but I only started watching it after reading some favourable things about it in the comments to a post by selenak. And my own reaction? Also very favourable!
[Attention, ex-Smallville fans: this might be a show for you. Attention Buffy fans: yep, this might also be a show for you.]
So Teen Wolf is a show about Scott (16) who, after becoming a werewolf, has to keep his secret, figure out pack dynamics and not kill anyone while falling in love with the daughter of a werewolf hunter. He does all this mainly because his future girlfriend is cool and his best friend is really, really smart.
So, a comparison to Smallville is really, really inevitable given that the show is about a male highschool student with superpowers and a secret. And Teen Wolf compares extremely favourably to Smallville (but then, let's be honest: almost anything compares favourably to much of SV...). It's not as good as, say, Buffy, although sometimes it reminds me of it, which SV rarely did. It's not the best show I've ever seen, but quite often it pleases me because it avoids obvious pitfalls and does quite well in regards to some issues that other shows tend to turn into FAIL: female characters, parents, friendships, secret keeping and villains.
So let's look at the characters first.
Scott: apparently many fans hate Scott for being a dumb teenage boy. Personally, I love him for being a dumb teenage boy. He's Harry Potter or Clark Kent at his worst: he only cares about sports, his own problems and his ONE TRUE LOVE. But the show acknowledges this, and sometimes uses it for humor. Plus, Scott may be selfish, but he's not as single-minded about keeping his secret as, say, Clark Kent. He tells his best friend straight away, and he and his girlfriend deal just fine with the fact that he's a werewolf and she's a future werewolf hunter. When Derek, Scott's werewolf hunter and general anti-hero of the show, wants to start a war with the hunters, Scott tries to get everyone to chill and work together to defeat a common enemy - he even suggests telling the hunters about that enemy. The only two character he should tell that he doesn't tell are his single mom (their relationship is very much Joyce and Buffy in the early seasons, but with less conflict) and Lydia (who ought to be told after she's bitten.) Scott is a pretty good guy, but he's never presented as a moral paragon of virtue the way Clark was meant to be yet wasn't, so I can laugh at his dumbness and obsession with Allison.
Peter: [Scott]'s username is Allison? His password is also Allison?
Stiles: Still want him in your pack?
Stiles: Scott's best friend and BEST CHARACTER. Stiles is really, really smart, but also a major dork and adorably hyper. He's the Willow and Xander to Scott's Buffy, or the Chloe to Scott's Clark, and a better friend you couldn't find. Fandom ships him with Derek, and I definitely see why, they have an adorable bickering dynamic. But personally I ship Stiles with Lydia (his love interest) because Stiles' love declarations to her include the fact that he sees how incredibly smart Lydia is, and how she's going to win a Nobel Prize in Mathematics (which Lydia corrects by telling him that there's no such thing: she's going to win the Fields Medal instead) and how she doesn't need to play the shallow popular highschool queen and even though Lydia tries very hard to remain aloof and arrogant towards him, she opens up bit by bit and it's just adorable. Though if the show does go in a Derek/Stiles direction or doesn't ever give me Stiles and Lydia as anything but a cool friendship, that'd be fine.
Allison Argent: Allison is the new girl, and belongs to a family of werewolf hunters - except she only just figures this out in S1. Allison is also a lot like Buffy in that she wants the power of being a hunter, and she has badass physical skills and a lot of spunk, but she doesn't like the rules of hunting, and she questions the necessity of torturing/killing werewolves - and dates one of them against the will of her parents. Allison is smarter (and older) than Scott, and her brand of "strong female character" reminds me of Scully, or Black Widow in Avengers: skilled, independently-minded, yet it's okay for her to admit fear or feelings.
Lydia: Lydia is Teen Wolf's Cordelia - the rich, bitchy queen bee of the High School who immediately picks out Allison as her new friend. Except it turns out pretty quickly that Lydia has major issues, in that she can't admit that she's pretty much the smartest cookie in the school (on top of being a curvy redheaded beauty). She pretends that she only dates the captain of the Lacrosse team as a status symbol, but actually he breaks her heart when he dumps her. Lydia doesn't actually seem to have many friends besides Allison and later Stiles and Scott, and the scenes of her high on painkillers in bed or crying on the school toilet are some of the saddest on the show.
Allison [to Lydia]: Maybe you should stop pretending to suck just for his benefit.
Derek: Derek comes from a family of werewolves and thus knows werewolf stuff he could teach Scott. There are only two problems - 1) Derek is a taciturn, sullen, lone wolf magnet for manpain who lives alone in the woods in the burned-down house where most of his family died when he was a teenager and 2) Derek is obsessed with revenge (against the werewolf hunters who killed his family) and protecting himself and his pack. It's not that Derek is a bad guy, but his communication mostly consists of glowers, snarls, bared teeth and tossing people into walls. He's the show's resident bad boy - a lot like Spike without the snark, and thus not as awesome as Spike.
The werewolf hunters: the hunters have a "code", but no one except Allison's Dad ever sticks to it. Allison's Dad often looks like a handsome psycho, but he's actually mostly okay. Her Aunt Kate is basically Faith, and she eventually dies for her past crimes - but she's also the one who gives Allison the agency that comes with knowing the family secret. Kate also sometimes reminds me of Starbuck. Allison's grandad Gerard likes to chop people in half with a sword and is played by Col. Tigh - which routinely makes me laugh. He's a psycho, too, but he likes to play the sweet old doddering granddad. Allison's mother is scary and seems pretty horrible (worst parent of the show except Isaac's dad) but interestingly, it's revealed in S2 that the women are the ones in charge of the werewolf hunting family business, so maybe that's why.
Jackson: Jackson is Lydia's boyfriend (at the beginning), Scott's Lacrosse rival and a major asshole. But it's cute how his reaction to finding out about werewolves is: I HAVE TO BECOME A WEREWOLF. And then he fails completely at this, because of spoilers. Jackson is one of those characters you love to hate, but I really hope he and Lydia don't get back together.
Other wolves: In season 2, Derek starts turning lots of highschool students into werewolves because he thinks he needs a pack to survive, but most of them are cute losers who want to be wolves so they can defend themselves, be healthier, or be more popular.
The Vet: Mr Mysterious. Scott works at a vet clinic, and his boss apparently knows all about supernatural beings, but he won't tell Scott why or how. I really like him, and I'm looking forward to finding out his backstory. Plus he's one of the very few non-white characters. Lack of diversity is one of the minus points of Teen Wolf.
The plot: generally fast paced, the episodes are connected, no monster of the week, not a lot of "stupid for the sake of the plot".
So, in conclusion:
- not quite as funny or innovative as Buffy
- relatively little diversity in the cast
- sometimes a little cliched
- Derek is no Lex and no Spike (sorry, Derek fans)
- the Argents aren't the Luthors (not quite)
+ cool female characters, and the show does good things with them (passing of the Bechdel test and such)
+ fast-paced, connected episodes
+ interesting minor characters
+ a lot of good music, although sometimes it seems a bit like a music video
+ I like how it deals with sexuality: girls and women are shown to like their own sexuality, it has a lot more female gaze than male gaze (unless it's a gay male gaze... I don't think there is a show with more locker room scenes and naked male chests than Teen Wolf) and there's no silly "no sex until marriage" or any of that ridiculousness, plus there is an openly gay guy on the sports team and the show deals fairly well with that, too (although sometimes it's used for comic relief, like when Scott dances with him at the prom to escape the wrath of the coach)
+ teachers and parents are shown to be real people: vain, silly, sad, cruel, stupid, clever, kind - there are all shades of them
+ Colonel Tigh as grandpa-werewolf hunter is gold
So if you'd like a supernatural romance/action/teen show that doesn't induce massive rage each week, try Teen Wolf :)
My newest discovery is Teen Wolf, which has been on my radar as "that show with the gay gifs" for a while, but I only started watching it after reading some favourable things about it in the comments to a post by selenak. And my own reaction? Also very favourable!
[Attention, ex-Smallville fans: this might be a show for you. Attention Buffy fans: yep, this might also be a show for you.]
So Teen Wolf is a show about Scott (16) who, after becoming a werewolf, has to keep his secret, figure out pack dynamics and not kill anyone while falling in love with the daughter of a werewolf hunter. He does all this mainly because his future girlfriend is cool and his best friend is really, really smart.
So, a comparison to Smallville is really, really inevitable given that the show is about a male highschool student with superpowers and a secret. And Teen Wolf compares extremely favourably to Smallville (but then, let's be honest: almost anything compares favourably to much of SV...). It's not as good as, say, Buffy, although sometimes it reminds me of it, which SV rarely did. It's not the best show I've ever seen, but quite often it pleases me because it avoids obvious pitfalls and does quite well in regards to some issues that other shows tend to turn into FAIL: female characters, parents, friendships, secret keeping and villains.
So let's look at the characters first.
Scott: apparently many fans hate Scott for being a dumb teenage boy. Personally, I love him for being a dumb teenage boy. He's Harry Potter or Clark Kent at his worst: he only cares about sports, his own problems and his ONE TRUE LOVE. But the show acknowledges this, and sometimes uses it for humor. Plus, Scott may be selfish, but he's not as single-minded about keeping his secret as, say, Clark Kent. He tells his best friend straight away, and he and his girlfriend deal just fine with the fact that he's a werewolf and she's a future werewolf hunter. When Derek, Scott's werewolf hunter and general anti-hero of the show, wants to start a war with the hunters, Scott tries to get everyone to chill and work together to defeat a common enemy - he even suggests telling the hunters about that enemy. The only two character he should tell that he doesn't tell are his single mom (their relationship is very much Joyce and Buffy in the early seasons, but with less conflict) and Lydia (who ought to be told after she's bitten.) Scott is a pretty good guy, but he's never presented as a moral paragon of virtue the way Clark was meant to be yet wasn't, so I can laugh at his dumbness and obsession with Allison.
Peter: [Scott]'s username is Allison? His password is also Allison?
Stiles: Still want him in your pack?
Stiles: Scott's best friend and BEST CHARACTER. Stiles is really, really smart, but also a major dork and adorably hyper. He's the Willow and Xander to Scott's Buffy, or the Chloe to Scott's Clark, and a better friend you couldn't find. Fandom ships him with Derek, and I definitely see why, they have an adorable bickering dynamic. But personally I ship Stiles with Lydia (his love interest) because Stiles' love declarations to her include the fact that he sees how incredibly smart Lydia is, and how she's going to win a Nobel Prize in Mathematics (which Lydia corrects by telling him that there's no such thing: she's going to win the Fields Medal instead) and how she doesn't need to play the shallow popular highschool queen and even though Lydia tries very hard to remain aloof and arrogant towards him, she opens up bit by bit and it's just adorable. Though if the show does go in a Derek/Stiles direction or doesn't ever give me Stiles and Lydia as anything but a cool friendship, that'd be fine.
Allison Argent: Allison is the new girl, and belongs to a family of werewolf hunters - except she only just figures this out in S1. Allison is also a lot like Buffy in that she wants the power of being a hunter, and she has badass physical skills and a lot of spunk, but she doesn't like the rules of hunting, and she questions the necessity of torturing/killing werewolves - and dates one of them against the will of her parents. Allison is smarter (and older) than Scott, and her brand of "strong female character" reminds me of Scully, or Black Widow in Avengers: skilled, independently-minded, yet it's okay for her to admit fear or feelings.
Lydia: Lydia is Teen Wolf's Cordelia - the rich, bitchy queen bee of the High School who immediately picks out Allison as her new friend. Except it turns out pretty quickly that Lydia has major issues, in that she can't admit that she's pretty much the smartest cookie in the school (on top of being a curvy redheaded beauty). She pretends that she only dates the captain of the Lacrosse team as a status symbol, but actually he breaks her heart when he dumps her. Lydia doesn't actually seem to have many friends besides Allison and later Stiles and Scott, and the scenes of her high on painkillers in bed or crying on the school toilet are some of the saddest on the show.
Allison [to Lydia]: Maybe you should stop pretending to suck just for his benefit.
Derek: Derek comes from a family of werewolves and thus knows werewolf stuff he could teach Scott. There are only two problems - 1) Derek is a taciturn, sullen, lone wolf magnet for manpain who lives alone in the woods in the burned-down house where most of his family died when he was a teenager and 2) Derek is obsessed with revenge (against the werewolf hunters who killed his family) and protecting himself and his pack. It's not that Derek is a bad guy, but his communication mostly consists of glowers, snarls, bared teeth and tossing people into walls. He's the show's resident bad boy - a lot like Spike without the snark, and thus not as awesome as Spike.
The werewolf hunters: the hunters have a "code", but no one except Allison's Dad ever sticks to it. Allison's Dad often looks like a handsome psycho, but he's actually mostly okay. Her Aunt Kate is basically Faith, and she eventually dies for her past crimes - but she's also the one who gives Allison the agency that comes with knowing the family secret. Kate also sometimes reminds me of Starbuck. Allison's grandad Gerard likes to chop people in half with a sword and is played by Col. Tigh - which routinely makes me laugh. He's a psycho, too, but he likes to play the sweet old doddering granddad. Allison's mother is scary and seems pretty horrible (worst parent of the show except Isaac's dad) but interestingly, it's revealed in S2 that the women are the ones in charge of the werewolf hunting family business, so maybe that's why.
Jackson: Jackson is Lydia's boyfriend (at the beginning), Scott's Lacrosse rival and a major asshole. But it's cute how his reaction to finding out about werewolves is: I HAVE TO BECOME A WEREWOLF. And then he fails completely at this, because of spoilers. Jackson is one of those characters you love to hate, but I really hope he and Lydia don't get back together.
Other wolves: In season 2, Derek starts turning lots of highschool students into werewolves because he thinks he needs a pack to survive, but most of them are cute losers who want to be wolves so they can defend themselves, be healthier, or be more popular.
The Vet: Mr Mysterious. Scott works at a vet clinic, and his boss apparently knows all about supernatural beings, but he won't tell Scott why or how. I really like him, and I'm looking forward to finding out his backstory. Plus he's one of the very few non-white characters. Lack of diversity is one of the minus points of Teen Wolf.
The plot: generally fast paced, the episodes are connected, no monster of the week, not a lot of "stupid for the sake of the plot".
So, in conclusion:
- not quite as funny or innovative as Buffy
- relatively little diversity in the cast
- sometimes a little cliched
- Derek is no Lex and no Spike (sorry, Derek fans)
- the Argents aren't the Luthors (not quite)
+ cool female characters, and the show does good things with them (passing of the Bechdel test and such)
+ fast-paced, connected episodes
+ interesting minor characters
+ a lot of good music, although sometimes it seems a bit like a music video
+ I like how it deals with sexuality: girls and women are shown to like their own sexuality, it has a lot more female gaze than male gaze (unless it's a gay male gaze... I don't think there is a show with more locker room scenes and naked male chests than Teen Wolf) and there's no silly "no sex until marriage" or any of that ridiculousness, plus there is an openly gay guy on the sports team and the show deals fairly well with that, too (although sometimes it's used for comic relief, like when Scott dances with him at the prom to escape the wrath of the coach)
+ teachers and parents are shown to be real people: vain, silly, sad, cruel, stupid, clever, kind - there are all shades of them
+ Colonel Tigh as grandpa-werewolf hunter is gold
So if you'd like a supernatural romance/action/teen show that doesn't induce massive rage each week, try Teen Wolf :)