I had a chance to see the first episode early in a screening in Philadelphia and it was quite good. It’s airing tonight at 9PM Eastern on Fox so now is as good a time as any to start a thread for spoiler related discussion of the episode and future episodes. Well I plan on personally waiting until after it airs before going any further as there are two very big twists.
It was certainly more exciting and better acted than The Inhumans! I was on the fence, but my wife liked it, which is something, so we'll keep watching. We're both Amy Acker fans, which helps. But those were the fakest-looking green contact lenses ever.
Due to various circumstances, I find myself unable to stream The Gifted. I was going to renew my Hulu account in a few weeks anyway for Marvel's Runaways, but I may just do it early for The Gifted.
Pretty good start and certainly better than I hoped, although it does have some cheesy overacting (mostly from Stephen Moyer). I'm not really familiar with any of the characters (except for Blink's small appearance in Days of Future Past) so I'm running blind on that front, which I'm fine with. Worked out pretty well Legion, although that's a significantly different show. I liked the world building, but at the same time, the episode was quick to move things forward. So Stan Lee appears in the very first episode of this show but Netflix can't get him to appear in any of their shows? Bah.
That Stan cameo was pretty ... unexciting. Always happy to see him, but more fun when he does something to make us laugh.
I didn't like it. This seems like the source material... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Men:_God_Loves,_Man_Kills Although why they turned Stryker into Strucker has me thinking Hydra, which cannot be available to these people unless there's an overlap with the rights since the founder of Hydra, Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker, his very Aryan twins are mutants with different powersets than the kids on hand here. Oh, this is weird... The Wasp, from the (first) Ant-Man movie is cast as one of the New Mutants... It's just a woman playing two different Marvel characters in different marvel universes, but we found Janet Van Dyne, so this story could have touched over into the Avengers, but it's clear that those stories are not touching "Sentinel Services" means they are too cheap to CGI render 90 foot tall robots. Why not just go the Japanese 1960s monster movie route? Can you imagine the tax breaks that the middle class would have there, if the US Government didn't have to build 90 foot tall robot to hunt down children who can talk to birds, and ####? I've never been happy with how limited the X-Men's tactic's have been in these stories, in the pilot here, the Gifted fight the police, when they should be blackmailing, threatening and terrifying Congress to reverse the law of the land, or taking their children and grandchildren. Lets see the Senate keep their shit together after they have been Pied Pipered. The President should wake up every morning with a live grenade in his mouth that Blink put there while he was sleeping. If the New Mutants have telepaths, this is not a fair fight, and should have been won years ago. Internal affairs/oversight should be receiving endless tips about how every Mutant Hunter, and politician did something really bad, and they should lose their job or be in jail. Lorna should start sinking multibillion dollar battleships and submarines until the US Government surrenders and apologizes. It's not hard, she just have to remove a few screws, until there's an explosion, or a radiation leak. Or a few electromagnetic pulses to wipe out wealth. Lets see these mutant hunters hunt when no one is paying them. Lorna Dane, who should have green hair, is Magneto's daughter by the way. Stephen Moyer's yank accent is still shite. I think I'll hate watch this series.
This was pretty good, though it's clearly operating on a much more limited budget than the movies. It's an interesting idea to set it in something that's an X-Men universe but not the same one from the movies, taking advantage of the multiverse concept. So it can reference the familiar X-Men background that audiences are familiar with but still take the story in its own direction. It's nice that the core family is loving and supportive, with a normal degree of bickering but not the kind of massive dysfunction that too many writers assume that families need to have in order to be dramatically interesting. I prefer it this way, seeing them close and instinctively watching out for each other. It makes it easier to root for them. Although it seems they've changed the father's role since the original pilot in order to make him more sympathetic. As I recall, the original pilot had him as part of the mutant-hunting agency, and his scene with Polaris (which we saw clips of in the previews) had her hanging in some creepy plastic shrink-wrap bondage rather than standing in a cell. Now he's just a city attorney who works on mutant cases. I wonder if that change was really necessary. The bit with Eclipse's ringtone being the X-Men cartoon theme was awesome. And speaking of in-jokes, when Eclipse met Strucker in the diner, I think that was a painting of a wolverine on the wall behind Eclipse. Well, the majority of the characters are original, although the Strucker kids Andy and Lauren seem to be loosely based on Andreas and Andrea von Strucker, the genetically altered twin children of Hydra's leader Baron von Strucker. Which is really weird, since they're bad guys. The main established mutant characters are Polaris (Lorna Dane), Blink (Clarice Fong), and Thunderbird (John Proudstar). The latter was a character who was introduced in the debut story of the "All-New" X-Men in 1975... and then killed off in their second story. So he didn't get a lot of character development. I don't know much about Blink, but Polaris is Magneto's daughter in some versions, including this one. In the comics, she's usually romantically linked with Havok (Cyclops's brother).
Yeah, I found that refreshing as well, despite liking the occasional dysfunctional family scenario (because I'm in one, albeit not dramatically so). But it's familial love that is especially refreshing, from brother and sister genuinely caring for each without forced rivalries for the sake of rivalry, mom and dad loving their children no matter what, despite what their feelings were about mutants before the children's revelations. Yet, they can still have the normal bickering on a basic level outside of the mutant drama. Ah, I wondered if they changed his character somehow. I had thought he was originally advertised as more aggressively anti-mutant when the show was first announced. I'm thankful for that change. That is a weird basis, but I did wonder if there was a connection there. Strucker isn't a common surname after all. I've seen the name Polaris pop up here and there over the years, but I've never seen the character in any form, but then I wasn't a reader of the comics, nor did I watch the 90s animated show.
They rushed through a lot through the first hour. This could've worked better as a two hour premiere to give the characters and plot some room to move.
In what way? I was relieved that the episode didn't drag its feet in setting up the series by filling in with inane teen and family drama, etc. Quick set-up of who these characters are and then bam mutant powers unveil themselves. I don't need to see scene upon scene of how Andy is getting bullied or how Reed works as an anti-mutant attorney to understand the basis of their characters prior to getting to the crux of the series: The loving parents of mutant children on the run.
I dunno, I think it could be more potent if he was part of the mutant-hunting establishment, just the kind of "ordinary man" who goes along with the oppression unquestioningly, and then was forced to do some real soul-searching and recognize how wrong he'd been once he realized his kids were mutants. I mean, he's still peripherally part of that oppressive system, but more detached from it, so it's not as big or dramatically effective a learning curve. Also, being a veteran of the system could be useful in helping him and his family fight the system, because he'd know their methods and secrets. She was only in a couple of episodes of the '90s show as a guest star. Her main screen appearance prior to this was as a major character in the 2009 Wolverine and the X-Men animated series, which only ran for one season. So she's not a character with a lot of screen history, which may be why they chose to use her. Blink, similarly, appeared mainly in Wolverine and the X-Men before this, along with her brief role in Days of Future Past and a suitably blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance in the '90s show. As for Thunderbird, this is only his second screen appearance, his first being in a 1983 episode of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.
Note... This is the Thunderbird who died quickly. His younger Brother who had an identical powerset stepped up a dew years later.
So is Lauren a cheerleader? Playing Silver St. Cloud on Gotham she's another one on the growing list of actors who've done both DC and Marvel productions.
I liked it but it went almost by my radar because i'm hard to pick up any new shows, even those that have it easier due to my interests. I especially liked that they didn't get all fanboyish about the XMen or any related characters/groups, it is their story which is set in the (an?) X-Men universe and they are quite subdued in name dropping.. they only drop the X-Men/Brotherhood once and for sure are not going on about famous characters like Wolverine (back when i read comics he seemed to pop up in every title and be a member of many teams during the same time). I especially had fun spotting established characters.. "Hey, that woman sure has the same power as Blink.. (a few minutes later).. Hey, that's Blink!" (the same happened with Thunderbird). It was a good introduction to the show and i'm curious where the story will go from there, i'll be definitely watching.
Finally caught up with this last night. I'm enjoying it so far . . . and feeling stupid that I only just now realize who played the father. (I knew I knew him from somewhere . . .. )
This show totally reminds me of Heroes. Its totally HRG and Claire going on the run from the Company.... well its making me want to rewatch Heroes Season 1 and then finally finish Heroes Reborn, anyways. Oh wow, just realized that it was the girl from Goldbergs/Gotham. No shit.