The Umbrella Academy - 8/10
This show is apparently based on a comic book series by Gerard Way. Had no idea he even wrote one until watching this, so I went into this completely unaware and not knowing what to expect. I still am not entirely sure of the background, but I will try my best to sum it up: The setting for this show takes place in New York City (?), as do most superhero stories. It's about a family of misfit adopted children who each have their own unique powers. Seven of these children were adopted by this mysterious billionaire who had plans to train them into controlling their powers and using them to help save citizens in danger (like stopping bank robberies, but instead of capturing the bad guys they just killed them) and eventually save the world. He coined his team of special children as The Umbrella Academy. However his "training" methods were questionable and considerably abusive, to the point where each character now has their own issues and demons they deal with 20 years later as adults. Each character moved on away from the Academy, to try and live their own lives despite their pasts, only to find themselves brought together again after the death of their "father" (aka the billionaire). Coming together only seems to bring dysfunction, as they have to deal with family secrets coming to the surface, plus their own issues with themselves, meanwhile in just 8 days the apocalypse will come and wipe out everyone and everything and they have to find a way to stop it.
I like superhero stories and films, although admittedly I think the genre is getting a little tiresome. (Thanks Disney) However this show has a fresher and darker theme, which I enjoy. I was expecting this show to be a predictable good vs evil, a group of misfit superheroes coming together to defeat some evil and once that evil is defeated there's always another threat to come, but it's not even that at all, and that's what I absolutely love. At first it seems there's just bad guy vs good guy, but the narrative consistently flip-flops through the whole series. There's no concrete good guy, bad guy. Rather there's just people trying to do what they think is the right thing, or things that would seem to label them as a bad person, but looking at their backstory you can't help but have a little bit of sympathy even if one character tried to kill another. The growth of the characters is great, as it doesn't move too fast and isn't so blase. There's no "you did this thing so now I hate you for the rest of the series!" or "you apologized, all better!" The character growth and emotions feel reasonable, like they make sense. And I like that. Nothing ruins a show (or movie) for me more than shallow character growth and predictability. Which also brings me to the storyline and plots -- they're entirely unpredictable. I found myself trying to think ahead and guess what would happen, only to be proven wrong, and I love that. It's not often I find myself complete caught up in the emotions and shocked over a scene where I didn't expect something to happen. But in quite a few scenes I actually caught myself gasping over something that had happened. If a show can make me feel that, I'm already sold.
Based on other reviews I've read, this show apparently fits in the rare category of the show being better than the book. I don't know how many books there are, I'm assuming a few volumes since Season 2 of this show comes out at the end of the month. So I'm assuming Book 1 = Season 1, Book 2 = Season 2...? Either way, I'm making note to not read the series anytime soon. Don't really want to ruin (or spoil) what great feelings I already have about this show.
I watched this *checks Netflix history* about a year ago exactly and also liked it quite a bit. The new season is coming out this coming week, so unlike me you don't have to wait a whole year to see what happens next!
I remember after watching this it started a trend for me of watching off-beat Netflix shows that are either based off comic books (er, or graphic novels) or similar to shows that are based off of off-beat comic books. I could just list them, but considering the thread I'm in, why not rate them!
So here are some shows I watched when I was craving more Umbrella Academy.
The End of the F***ing World - 9/10
Perhaps my favorite of the bunch, a dark comedy about a kid who thinks he wants to be a serial killer. Maybe? He thinks so. Who knows. Tackles some heavier topics throughout, but I would put it more in the comedy genre. Off-beat, dark, and I loved it.
Stranger Things - 8.5/10
No review needed I imagine at this point. Not formally based off any comics, but might as well be. Fun fact, Ingrid Michaelson's newest album
Stranger Songs is filled with songs inspired from the show, so if you weren't sold by the show's mass appeal I would hope you are now!
Sex Education - 7/10
Also not based on a comic book, or including anything supernatural whatsoever for that matter, but its tone reminds me so much of
The End of the F***ing World I felt obligated to include it. If you liked that one, this is similar except with a slightly lighter tone. The basic premise is a high school kid with a Sex Therapist for a mom who decides to use his own knowledge to teach the sex crazed kids at his school how to, uh, sex safely and stuff.
I Am Not Okay With This - 7/10
This one came out more recently, so you caught me I didn't watch it that close to when I first watched
Umbrella Academy. This one is based off a comic book though! I don't want to spoil to much, but it includes a girl who gets super powers, and it's clearly a metaphor for something else which I thought was excellently done. Comic books and super powers are so great at serving as vessels for other important topics, and this is a great example of that. It's pretty short though (8 episodes, 20-30 minutes each) so it's hard to fully formulate feelings about the show until a second season I feel.
Locke & Key - 6/10
This one I have the most mixed feelings about. In tone it is least similar to the rest in that it is a drama and takes itself fairly seriously. Still has that Netflix-teen show feel if you know what I mean, but not light. And is probably draws inspiration from one of the more prominent graphic novels.
My mixed feelings do not come from that though. It comes from the things it does well, it does very well. It sets a great atmosphere for what the show is, which is a eerie New England mystery/suspense. As someone from New England, I can attest to that. A major feature of the show is all these different keys that each have a special trait, and some are pretty cool, so I loved that aspect. And then you have the villain for the show who is great. I think it's really hard to create a pure evil villain without it feeling forced or fake, but this show did a really good job with it. I very surprised and impressed, well done.
But the plot suffers from one major downfall, which I like to call "Everyone is stupid". Why do I call it that? Well, basically every episode I felt the characters at one point or another went out of their way to defy reason and be stupid. Everything around these moments was okay, but at times it was incredibly jarring to watch a character act unrealistically for the sake of plot development. It made the show feel like a burnt $1000 steak at times. Great ingredients cooked poorly.
So yes, those are shows I watched.
