1.1 Pilot As it turns out, there’s something different about this troubled young white male. The voice in his head is Cara (Peyton List), and she’s a member of an organization known as the Tomorrow People. Alongside mentor/future love triangle partner John (Luke Mitchell), Cara is trying to rescue Stephen by… well, kidnapping him in the dead of night, luring him to an abandoned subway station turned high-tech Ninja Turtles lair complete with faux-JARVIS talking artificial intelligence computer system, and teaching him some sub-Matrix martial arts skills. Jameson will need all the kickfighting he can learn, because there’s a group of people who are out to get him. Well, not just him specifically, just Homo Superior in general. The other end of the spectrum from the Tomorrow People, Ultra (possibly ULTRA) is everything pop culture has taught young people to hate. A sneering white man in a suit named Jedikiah Price (Mark Pellegrino) is bent on rounding up all the “breakouts” of super-powered folks for study, experimentation, and imprisonment in a pretty neat little interrogation room/Faraday cage, which was one of the smarter ideas in the pilot episode. The Tomorrow People as a show is an interesting collection of talent. Phil Klemmer, who wrote the pilot episode and who is one of the executive producers, is one of the minds behind NBC’s lamented geek show Chuck. Julie Plec is similarly one of the driving forces behind the CW’s big hit The Vampire Diaries and its spin-off The Originals, as well as Kyle XY. Greg Berlanti is one of the writers behind Green Lantern, as well as the CW’s beloved superhero story Arrow. The show itself is basically taken from the ITV series from the mid-70s, and it uses a lot of the same terms, character names, and the general set-up, though it is clever enough to make jokes about the Tomorrow People name, as well as wink at the pseudo-scientific Homo Superior moniker. There’s a lot of power behind the show, but for whatever reason, it never connects. The show, like its cast, feels pretty bland. There are fight scenes breaking out left and right, but it feels rote. The teleportation special effects look okay, barring one egregious misuse of bullet time, but the execution reminds me entirely too much of a leather-jacketed Goku throwing around kamehamehas in some random live-action episode of Dragon Ball Z. There’s some cleverness in the way the show constructs its fight scenes and the way it uses teleportation as a violence delivery method, but for the most part the fighting is merely competent, rather than cool. I’m hoping that, as the series goes on, the quality of the show will improve. I’d like to see it find its feet, and I’d like to see the show build on its better ideas, but right now The Tomorrow People is just a huge pile of clichés glued together with weepy string music and/or generic action techno. US Correspondent Ron Hogan isn’t quite willing to give up on The Tomorrow People, but the first episode doesn’t give him much in the way of fond feelings for the US revival of the British classic. Find more by Ron daily at Shaktronics and PopFi. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
