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The 100

How bad is this new teen sci-fi? Very.

2014-08-30_0013Whoa. We may just have a contender for the most Z-grade new drama of the year in The 100. No wonder Channel Nine decided to pass on this one. Check your brain at the door, turn down the sound and look at the pretty pictures. It may help to pass the hour.

The 100 is produced for the youth-skewed CW channel in the US, which has been home to a mix of hits and misses including Supernatural, Beauty & The Beast, 90210, The Vampire Diaries, Arrow, Gossip Girl, Smallville, The Carrie Diaries -are you seeing a theme yet? Their shows are invariably about putting young characters front and centre for their audience, which is fair enough.

The 100 began as a Young Adult novel by Kass Morgan and probably should have stayed there before being adapted by Jason Rothenberg. As she noted in a Huffington Post article, 11 Things You Learn When Your Book Is Turned Into A TV Show, “the show varies a lot from the book.”

The post-apocalyptic series takes place 97 years after life on Earth has been erased by nuclear war. The only survivors are aboard an international space station, also home to an inter-galactic prison where its inhabitants are all under the age of 18. Any older than 18 and they are expired, with apologies to Logan’s Run.

One of the prisoners is an attractive young woman Clarke (former Neighbours star Eliza Taylor) whose only crime seems to be being the daughter of a rebel father. When the series opens she joins 99 other young inmates jettisoned to Earth to see if it is inhabitable once again. Down in the land of gravity Earth looks like a scene from After Earth: it’s lush, green and a perfect playground for 100 random hot teens.

It’s about here that The 100 begins to resemble a kind of futuristic Spring Break. Tempers and passions flare, alpha-males lock horns (and not much else), girls strip down to the barest of threads to spontaneously dip themselves in the water. Amongst the troupe is Bellamy (another former Neighbours and Home and Away face, Bob Morley) who emerges as a team leader.

Back on the Ark spacestation, Clarke’s mother Dr. Abby Griffin (Paige Turco) is caught in a power struggle with Councillor Marcus Kane (Henry Ian Cusick) and may not survive. Isaiah Washington plays Chancellor Thelonious Jaha. He ironically tells The 100 they are getting a “second chance” which is probably what The CW told him when hiring him given was booted off Grey’s Anatomy for conduct unbecoming.

Naturally all is not right in paradise with some radiation-affected wildlife that look like they might be pals of Blinky, that three-eyed fish in The Simpsons.

So far we’ve seen all this before, but here it is morphed together with a cast more attractive than experienced (the Aussies execute themselves admirably however). The dialogue is particularly excruciating, with lines that horrendously signpost backstory. And did we mention the pointless pop choons?

In space no-one can hear you scream, which is what I felt like doing for much of this turkey.

The 100 airs Thursday September 4 at 7.30pm on FOX8.

19 Responses

  1. Well, I have now watched the first episode of The 100!
    OMG! Definitely not up to the standard of Arrow, Smallville and so on. Even the now cancelled Star Crossed was better than this!
    It is very “Lord Of The Flies”, too depressing, the cast is very uninspiring and all very beige. Infact the entire show is very “average” and does not deserve to continue when far better shows have been axed. This will only depress the “target audience” and encourage them to behave badly! 🙂
    @Southpatt: If you are starved of SF, check ot Real Humans on SBS … Swedish Sci-fi, just amazing. Jag älskar äkta människor! 🙂

  2. That’s a shame, David, because the show is actually one of the best shows that launched in the US last season. You’re going to be very surprised if you just give it a chance.
    True,; the pilot was so so, but they knew where they were going. They take a lof of risks and if the acting isn’t always good, the writing is. Just give it another chance.

  3. Understand – and agree with – your point SmokeStack, but the foundations are actually there for this show. It’s just that they don’t appear on the pilot.

    And there’s been plenty of examples of shows beginning slowly, or going through slumps for the sake of exposition & the big picture.

  4. Life’s too short. Who has time to persevere with a drama that falls short on its pilot episode.

    The way I see it, is you don’t build a solid series on shaky foundations.

  5. You know, they may make these shows for a “Teen Audience” but we “older viewers” definitely know a good show from a bad show! CW have provided me with a few all time favourites over the years … Smallville, Arrow, um, and, um … Hart Of Dixie … Um, ah, … oh!
    Well I did like Star Crossed and The Tomorrow People but then they were cancelled after 1 season. I like Reign, but then forgot to watch the second half of the season …
    Thank god that The Flash is coming soon!
    I’m now running out of Tenn Wolf episodes to watch … oh, sorry, wrong network! 🙂

  6. David, that is really unfair – I too have seen a few eps of this and it is actually quite good once it gets going.. Don’t be such a Negative Nelly just because you didn’t like the pilot. I think they did a good job of this one.. I would agree others have been really bad, but The 100 I like..

  7. i disagree. i dont think you’re the target audience for this show david, but either way it does get better as it goes on. very excited for season 2. bit predictable but good sci fi graphics and a decent storyline.

  8. I watched the first episode via other means and didn’t think it was that bad! However I do admit to loving most CW shows (Arrow, Supernatural, The Originals, TVD) and am right in their target demographic.

  9. This is actually one of my new favourite shows of this year. It gets better with each episode and builds up to a pretty good finale. Can’t wait for season 2 to start!

  10. Harsh. Very harsh. Based on the pilot episode, I’d agree to an extent… But this series surprisingly gets better as it goes along.

    It basically required the flashback scenes (which begin in episode 3) to be somehow integrated earlier, so that viewers could be more invested in the characters Рno matter how admittedly clich̩d and good-looking they may be.

    But yeah, there’s way too many little bugbears on this show (EG: why are all the teens American since the ark was made up of 12 countries’ space stations)?

    Also, I think it’s 97 years, not 79.

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