Misfits
I am so painfully behind on my fic masterlists, you guys. I haven’t updated them in months.
...Oh well! I am going to rec some telly. Which is, to my knowledge, only on in the UK (Channel 4, Saturday night) and very new. Never mind.
It’s called Misfits and I think it’s the new Being Human. The set-up is thus: five young offenders on community service get caught in an electrical storm and they end up with supernatural powers. Their parole officer is caught in it too, basically goes nuts and tries to kill them, getting the sixth YO - conveniently, the one without powers. The Misfits kill him off in self-defence, and agree to hide what happened.
I’ve never been much into the whole We Must Give The Young People Characters They Can Identify With thing, tbh - probably because I don’t do the whole identifying-with-characters thing myself. This is not to say that the importance of having queer characters in mainstream programmes or BME characters everywhere has passed me by, just... the idea that having characters who ‘lived my life’ was necessary for my entertainment as British Youf makes me snort in disgust.
That said, recognising the characters as people I went to school with, was friends with - am still friends with in a few cases - was actually hugely enjoyable. I spent the first fifteen minutes going Oh my god, that accent! I hear it all the time and I’ve almost never heard it on telly! I know someone who looks just like him! Etc. Now I watch almost no telly so maybe it’s just me, but my sense is that having a totally, stereotypically chavvy girl on British television as the hero instead of the comic relief is unusual at the least. We’re beyond Vicky Pollard here, folks.
Seriously, the chav girl - Kelly - is my favourite. She’s very brave, she’s altruistic - she runs to warn the others of their danger despite mutual scorn - and she’s the most actively ‘heroic’ too. When they’re all being threatened by their psychotic parole officer, the other four stand in frozen fear. Kelly grabs a chair and cracks his skull. He’s still not dead, so she smacks until he most emphatically is.
Not great, but her physical abilities are undoubted - and not supernatural in nature. She is just a natural and talented pugilist.
I wince a bit from some elements of it. The impression I get so far (unconfirmed) is that their personalities/emotions inform their particular powers: the famed athlete who’s likely wrecked his career over ‘a little bit of coke’ gets the ability to turn back time, the quiet, strange kid gets the ability to be invisible and unheard, the girl who uses sex appeal for everything gets the ability to make men desperate for her with a touch.
Yeah, you read that last one right. It’s presented as wholly negative and frightening, and makes an attempted rape scene, at the least, inevitable. :( Besides which, while the boys can’t control their powers, the girls are victims of their powers - Kelly’s mind-reading makes her worry she’s going mad and loses her a boyfriend she says she loves.
(The fact that there’s a rampaging, violent black man - the parole officer post-electrical storm - isn’t great either, but helpfully one of the Misfits is a young black man. The impression is that the arbitrary difference between the murderous-crazy-power of the parole officer and what happens to the Misfits stems from the fact that he is an adult authority figure, rather than from his ‘blackness’.)
I really like all the characters so far: they were almost all instantly charming. The girl with sex-appeal powers is a gorgeous mixed-race girl who’s done for a DUI. She’s social and charming and so entirely recognisable to me - the part where the parole officer confiscates her phone and she laughs at him anyway happened every day at my school - that I was instantly rather attached. There’s Kelly, who I mentioned earlier. Seriously, the amazingness of a heroic chav on British telly really can’t be overstated. It’s a class thing.
There’s also a black athlete who’s respectful of the ladies and bitterly regretful of the crime that’s got him banned from athletics for two years. If this becomes a little fandom, he will inevitably be slashed with the inevitable woobie sarcastic, smart-mouthed white boy with curly dark hair and vulnerable eyes who got chucked out by his mum. Said woobie is icky about women and a bit of a bully, but not bad.
Hilariously, it’s the third boy who I strongly suspect is gay or bi (there was a significant shot of him glancing at a boy in the pilot). He’s a bit of a weirdo - quiet and intense with the classic staring blue-green eyes. He tried to burn a house down, and my feeling is that he has a very strange home life. *intrigued*
So, yes. Ensemble cast, pretty people in a British sort of way, interesting characters and supernatural powers. I love those things! Also the possibility of watching slashers ignore the slightly strange gay character in favour of slashing the pretty ones, which will be vaguely annoying but funny. More importantly, television I actually want to watch! Huzzah!
...Oh well! I am going to rec some telly. Which is, to my knowledge, only on in the UK (Channel 4, Saturday night) and very new. Never mind.
It’s called Misfits and I think it’s the new Being Human. The set-up is thus: five young offenders on community service get caught in an electrical storm and they end up with supernatural powers. Their parole officer is caught in it too, basically goes nuts and tries to kill them, getting the sixth YO - conveniently, the one without powers. The Misfits kill him off in self-defence, and agree to hide what happened.
I’ve never been much into the whole We Must Give The Young People Characters They Can Identify With thing, tbh - probably because I don’t do the whole identifying-with-characters thing myself. This is not to say that the importance of having queer characters in mainstream programmes or BME characters everywhere has passed me by, just... the idea that having characters who ‘lived my life’ was necessary for my entertainment as British Youf makes me snort in disgust.
That said, recognising the characters as people I went to school with, was friends with - am still friends with in a few cases - was actually hugely enjoyable. I spent the first fifteen minutes going Oh my god, that accent! I hear it all the time and I’ve almost never heard it on telly! I know someone who looks just like him! Etc. Now I watch almost no telly so maybe it’s just me, but my sense is that having a totally, stereotypically chavvy girl on British television as the hero instead of the comic relief is unusual at the least. We’re beyond Vicky Pollard here, folks.
Seriously, the chav girl - Kelly - is my favourite. She’s very brave, she’s altruistic - she runs to warn the others of their danger despite mutual scorn - and she’s the most actively ‘heroic’ too. When they’re all being threatened by their psychotic parole officer, the other four stand in frozen fear. Kelly grabs a chair and cracks his skull. He’s still not dead, so she smacks until he most emphatically is.
Not great, but her physical abilities are undoubted - and not supernatural in nature. She is just a natural and talented pugilist.
I wince a bit from some elements of it. The impression I get so far (unconfirmed) is that their personalities/emotions inform their particular powers: the famed athlete who’s likely wrecked his career over ‘a little bit of coke’ gets the ability to turn back time, the quiet, strange kid gets the ability to be invisible and unheard, the girl who uses sex appeal for everything gets the ability to make men desperate for her with a touch.
Yeah, you read that last one right. It’s presented as wholly negative and frightening, and makes an attempted rape scene, at the least, inevitable. :( Besides which, while the boys can’t control their powers, the girls are victims of their powers - Kelly’s mind-reading makes her worry she’s going mad and loses her a boyfriend she says she loves.
(The fact that there’s a rampaging, violent black man - the parole officer post-electrical storm - isn’t great either, but helpfully one of the Misfits is a young black man. The impression is that the arbitrary difference between the murderous-crazy-power of the parole officer and what happens to the Misfits stems from the fact that he is an adult authority figure, rather than from his ‘blackness’.)
I really like all the characters so far: they were almost all instantly charming. The girl with sex-appeal powers is a gorgeous mixed-race girl who’s done for a DUI. She’s social and charming and so entirely recognisable to me - the part where the parole officer confiscates her phone and she laughs at him anyway happened every day at my school - that I was instantly rather attached. There’s Kelly, who I mentioned earlier. Seriously, the amazingness of a heroic chav on British telly really can’t be overstated. It’s a class thing.
There’s also a black athlete who’s respectful of the ladies and bitterly regretful of the crime that’s got him banned from athletics for two years. If this becomes a little fandom, he will inevitably be slashed with the inevitable woobie sarcastic, smart-mouthed white boy with curly dark hair and vulnerable eyes who got chucked out by his mum. Said woobie is icky about women and a bit of a bully, but not bad.
Hilariously, it’s the third boy who I strongly suspect is gay or bi (there was a significant shot of him glancing at a boy in the pilot). He’s a bit of a weirdo - quiet and intense with the classic staring blue-green eyes. He tried to burn a house down, and my feeling is that he has a very strange home life. *intrigued*
So, yes. Ensemble cast, pretty people in a British sort of way, interesting characters and supernatural powers. I love those things! Also the possibility of watching slashers ignore the slightly strange gay character in favour of slashing the pretty ones, which will be vaguely annoying but funny. More importantly, television I actually want to watch! Huzzah!