I have been running behind in watching new series in the past few weeks as I was catching up on a series that just concluded 3 months ago after 7 seasons, i.e Once Upon A Time which last time I saw was only up to second season. So yeah I got to finish 5 seasons of 22 episodes each. Anyway I decided to watch a superhero drama series that I noticed was having quite high rating and only having 13 episodes in its first season. Now let's move on to the series.
Brief Story Line
Reed Strucker (Stephen Moyer - True Blood TV series, Detour etc) and his wife Caitlin (Amy Acker - Person of Interest, Angel TV series etc) were an ordinary couple whose life was torn apart when they found out that their high school daughter Lauren (Natalie Alyn Lind) and her younger brother Andy (Percy Hynes White) turned out to be having X-gene which made them mutants. With the existing law that made mutants life very difficult, Reed and Caitlin had no choice but to try and bring their children out of the country, and enlisted the help from Marcos aka Eclipse (Sean Teale) who was in a mutants resistance group called Mutants Underground.
With the help from fellow leaders of the group, i.e. John aka Thunderbird (Blair Redford) and Lorna aka Polaris (Emma Dumont), plus a new member Clarice aka Blink (Jamie Chung - The Hangover part II, Sin City: A Dame to Kill for etc), Eclipse tried his best to assist the Struckers while they were being chased by Sentinel Services agent Jace Turner (Coby Bell - Burn Notice TV series etc). Unfortunately things were not as easy as it would since Agent Turner was having personal vendetta to capture all the mutants and got the help from the scientists in Trask Industries.
Things became further complicated psychologically for the Strucker children being hunted mutants, not to mention Reed's unique position as DA whose main task was to prosecute criminal mutants. So how would the Strucker family survive this and would the mutants be able to escape from Sentinel Services? Find them all in this exciting suspenseful action series.
End of Brief Story Line
Well I got to say that I was really hooked up with the series from the pilot episode. I thought it was very interesting to see how the Strucker children find their powers for the first time and it was having a really fast pace. Until the fifth episode, the pace was consistently fast and intriguing which made me unable to stop watching it. But then the story pace dropped quite significantly with more of dramatic moments being shown and the characters development showed more. However it did not take long for it to pick up the pace and the story became more exciting and suspenseful, leading to a really wonderful season finale in the 13th episode. The ending truly made me cannot wait for the second season to start soon.
Apart from the fast pace and intriguing story, the series main attraction was the characters which were mostly from the Marvel's X-Men series (X-Men was also mentioned few times, though none of the original members who were most famous such as Professor X, Magneto, Wolverine, Jean Grey or Cyclops and others appeared). However, except for Blink that had been shown one time in X-Men: Days of Future Past (then portrayed by Fan Bingbing), none of the rest had appeared in live version anywhere. So it was very interesting to see these young superheroes appearing. The non superheroes characters here were also quite interesting, with the complexity of Reed Strucker and Agent Turner, plus the strength of a mother in Caitlin. There was also few guest stars appearing in the series, with one that really stood out Garret Dillahunt (Braven, The 4400 TV series etc).
The special effects for this series were pretty decent. They may not be spectacular but sufficient to complete the story, with the make up effects quite good too. From all the episodes, I truly was amazed with episode 10 which I thought was awesome, and of course episode 13 which I think served as a wonderful climax. One of the things that I felt great in the series was the tone of the series and the way the story evolved as it somehow made me really anticipating the climax. Oh and since X-Men were the property of Marvel comics, just like in Marvel movies, there was appearance of the beloved Stan Lee (hope you noticed him appearing in one of the episode).
I understand from the article about the series that since it was set in the X-Men universe, it was somehow linked to another series X-Men TV series Legion though in a different time line (universe?). Anyway, unlike that series, this one I was able to enjoy it a lot more, simply because of the suspense and the easier story line to absorb, though as I would have guessed, the rating for this series was lower than Legion. But as long as it is still having good rating and the show is still continuing, I would just be happy and enjoy it.
Overall, this is one of the most interesting first season series that I have watched. Here's hoping that it would stay as exciting as the first season and continued until properly resolved later. Those looking for a series set in X-Men universe having an interesting plot but not having us to really fully concentrate to understand whether it's real or unreal, then this one would probably fit you better. But if you prefer the heavy plot and something to blow your mind, then Legion would probably be more satisfying for you. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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