The first episode of Misfits came across as a typical E4 show at first. It had nice pacey editing, cool foul mouthed kids, and hip indie music. Luckily none of this was overdone in a Skins/Hollyoaks kind of fashion. The show starts quickly by introducing us to the protagonists getting ready for community service. Instantly, these are people we shouldn't particularly like, but they are fairly humorous. It isn't long before giant blocks of ice are raining down and smashing everything in sight. After they're hit by lightning Kelly begins to read minds. This ties in with her character (as do all the revealed powers), as she is worried what others think of her. It leads to a lot of comedy in the episode, especially when she reads her dog's mind, which is voiced perfectly by Phil Daniels. Unfortunately, the storm has affected their probation officer too and it has amplified his rage towards "scum". He soon becomes very dangerous. This was an excellent first episode. It juggled the themes and tones perfectly. It presented the characters as simple stereotypes, but hinted at complexity which would no doubt be developed upon throughout the series. It also leaves the characters in a dangerous position, but one where we are totally on their side, but also feel for the others they have to face. Had me hooked.
2 Reviews
Misfits: A retrospective - Part 1 of 5
Clockwork-Avacado20 February 2014
Warning: Spoilers
After 5 years, and 37 episodes of varying quality, "Misfits" has finally come to an end, with only rumours concerning a possible film project remaining. Misfits has been a very interesting, very unique part of my life recently, and now, after it's all over, it's only appropriate to write this retrospective of one of the most original, frustrating and bizarre shows ever conceived.
"The synopsis always sounds crap...It's about five kids, who're doing community service, who all get struck by an electrical ice storm, and develop superpowers, and then people always go "Really..?" So said Robert Sheehan in one of the gang's first interviews, back for season one. And he was right. The idea, is not a sound one, nor does it especially convey exactly the essence of just what Misfits is. Only in Britain, would you get a concept this left-field, this subversive, and, frankly, this mental. Yet, series creator Howard Overman, although providing input throughout each series, knew exactly what he was doing.
When Series 1 kicked off, we were immediately dropped into a scummy, realistic world of unlikeable youth offenders, who quarrelled, and bickered, and bullied, and fought each other. The important thing to remember, which may seem something of a no-brainer after all this time, was that by making each of our main characters a youth offender, Overman was creating a posse of retrograde types, who we would come to know and understand as the show went on, and who we were challenged to like, and find attractive as human beings. People with ASBOs. Yeah, the total opposite of most superpower-centric narratives; our moral compass was being well and truly subverted.
But...somehow, with a record breaking amount of profanity, sex, violence, drugs and immoral behaviour, there was something so intrinsically believable about that first series of Misfits, the feeling that we were watching something real, despite its' very fantastic context. In a way, those first episodes genuinely provided us with the most believable depiction of super powered humans we'd ever seen. The dirty, stinking, foul-mouthed picture. It was dark, unpleasant drama, even in spite of its' amount of humour - humour which was invariably at the expense of other people, or pitch-black gallows humour, or plain simple crudity. There was nothing sophisticated at all about Misfits, and that was why that first series was the show's finest ever hour. Because it knew exactly what it was doing, and never pandered to a prettified version of the reality.
It was the show's own cruelty, its' foulness and its' lack of morality which made the humour such a relief, as unpleasant as it often was. It was a version of reality so un-heightened that we felt as though we were living through it all. And most of all, we came to feel sorry for Simon (Iwan Rheon), the sad, quiet outsider in the group. It was Simon who gave us our most emotional moments – his troubled relationship with Alex Reid's Sally was the show's finest ever moment (episode 1.5), because it was so gorgeously uncomfortable. This was a very real person, and whereas Nathan made us laugh, it was always Simon who we rooted for, because he never really was one of them.
Lauren Socha was simply what she was; a hard mouthed chav, with a tough exterior, which occasionally gave way for some moments of nice humanity. Out of all the gang, she was the one who had the most time for Simon, was the most forgiving, and the least unkind. Antonia Thomas, as sexually obsessed Alisha, was a one-note character who was rather tiresome, and never convinced us there was anything underneath – which made her metamorphosis in later series, to a far more likable character rather hard to take. Nathan Stewart-Jarret as Curtis, was another character without much character, who acted kind of as a sounding board for the other more extreme characters to bounce off. His big moment – episode 1.4, was the first time that we were presented with a familiar superhero trope, something dramatically sound, whilst still retaining its' sense of earthiness; Curtis was forced to choose between several versions of the past, which would have varying consequences on the future; however, the ending was ultimately rather botched, and instead of having a moral point or lesson, as we felt there would be, everything just turned out nice again, and Curtis had his cake, and ate it too.
The season 1 finale was horrendously disappointing, because it ignored everything before it. What it did, though, was to prove once and for all, that Misfits was not the show you thought it was. The villain's power was to make people nice, and good and pure, and sure enough, Nathan fought for his right to remain a complete arse, and finally died for it. And, in so doing, he defined the show's philosophies, as living fast, and loud and dying young. It was a blow, especially after the previous episodes touching humanity, and brilliant use of superpowers. But, it was true to these characters. It would go on to become a staple of the show that we would find ourselves enjoying a character's quirkiness, and their unique brand of humour, only to suddenly be pulled up, by their total immorality. These characters were so finely drawn, that we could become immersed in them, in spite of their weaknesses. Series 1 was real, and beautifully written, because it got us on the side of the devil, and made us enjoy it with some subversive, anarchic and impossibly dark story lines. The "punch-line" of the series, Nathan's invincibility, was a nice ending, partly because a little part of us thought that it was a kind of poetic justice. If it had all ended there, which thankfully it didn't, we would have had a perfect send-off for the gang. But there was more to come.
(See episode 2.1 for Part 2)
"The synopsis always sounds crap...It's about five kids, who're doing community service, who all get struck by an electrical ice storm, and develop superpowers, and then people always go "Really..?" So said Robert Sheehan in one of the gang's first interviews, back for season one. And he was right. The idea, is not a sound one, nor does it especially convey exactly the essence of just what Misfits is. Only in Britain, would you get a concept this left-field, this subversive, and, frankly, this mental. Yet, series creator Howard Overman, although providing input throughout each series, knew exactly what he was doing.
When Series 1 kicked off, we were immediately dropped into a scummy, realistic world of unlikeable youth offenders, who quarrelled, and bickered, and bullied, and fought each other. The important thing to remember, which may seem something of a no-brainer after all this time, was that by making each of our main characters a youth offender, Overman was creating a posse of retrograde types, who we would come to know and understand as the show went on, and who we were challenged to like, and find attractive as human beings. People with ASBOs. Yeah, the total opposite of most superpower-centric narratives; our moral compass was being well and truly subverted.
But...somehow, with a record breaking amount of profanity, sex, violence, drugs and immoral behaviour, there was something so intrinsically believable about that first series of Misfits, the feeling that we were watching something real, despite its' very fantastic context. In a way, those first episodes genuinely provided us with the most believable depiction of super powered humans we'd ever seen. The dirty, stinking, foul-mouthed picture. It was dark, unpleasant drama, even in spite of its' amount of humour - humour which was invariably at the expense of other people, or pitch-black gallows humour, or plain simple crudity. There was nothing sophisticated at all about Misfits, and that was why that first series was the show's finest ever hour. Because it knew exactly what it was doing, and never pandered to a prettified version of the reality.
It was the show's own cruelty, its' foulness and its' lack of morality which made the humour such a relief, as unpleasant as it often was. It was a version of reality so un-heightened that we felt as though we were living through it all. And most of all, we came to feel sorry for Simon (Iwan Rheon), the sad, quiet outsider in the group. It was Simon who gave us our most emotional moments – his troubled relationship with Alex Reid's Sally was the show's finest ever moment (episode 1.5), because it was so gorgeously uncomfortable. This was a very real person, and whereas Nathan made us laugh, it was always Simon who we rooted for, because he never really was one of them.
Lauren Socha was simply what she was; a hard mouthed chav, with a tough exterior, which occasionally gave way for some moments of nice humanity. Out of all the gang, she was the one who had the most time for Simon, was the most forgiving, and the least unkind. Antonia Thomas, as sexually obsessed Alisha, was a one-note character who was rather tiresome, and never convinced us there was anything underneath – which made her metamorphosis in later series, to a far more likable character rather hard to take. Nathan Stewart-Jarret as Curtis, was another character without much character, who acted kind of as a sounding board for the other more extreme characters to bounce off. His big moment – episode 1.4, was the first time that we were presented with a familiar superhero trope, something dramatically sound, whilst still retaining its' sense of earthiness; Curtis was forced to choose between several versions of the past, which would have varying consequences on the future; however, the ending was ultimately rather botched, and instead of having a moral point or lesson, as we felt there would be, everything just turned out nice again, and Curtis had his cake, and ate it too.
The season 1 finale was horrendously disappointing, because it ignored everything before it. What it did, though, was to prove once and for all, that Misfits was not the show you thought it was. The villain's power was to make people nice, and good and pure, and sure enough, Nathan fought for his right to remain a complete arse, and finally died for it. And, in so doing, he defined the show's philosophies, as living fast, and loud and dying young. It was a blow, especially after the previous episodes touching humanity, and brilliant use of superpowers. But, it was true to these characters. It would go on to become a staple of the show that we would find ourselves enjoying a character's quirkiness, and their unique brand of humour, only to suddenly be pulled up, by their total immorality. These characters were so finely drawn, that we could become immersed in them, in spite of their weaknesses. Series 1 was real, and beautifully written, because it got us on the side of the devil, and made us enjoy it with some subversive, anarchic and impossibly dark story lines. The "punch-line" of the series, Nathan's invincibility, was a nice ending, partly because a little part of us thought that it was a kind of poetic justice. If it had all ended there, which thankfully it didn't, we would have had a perfect send-off for the gang. But there was more to come.
(See episode 2.1 for Part 2)
See also
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