Over the weekend, MTV debuted its new supernatural teen drama series, Teen Wolf. It wasn’t as bad as a expected.
Of course, I was expecting very little. I tuned in imagining that I would find a Twilight story, and that I would hate it.
It has some elements of Twilight, of course, at this point in our culture, how could any supernatural teen drama not have some Twilight elements, but luckily, it also chose to borrow from a few other, better shows like Smallville.
Of course any secret identity story is going to have a few necessary tropes, and this one is no exception.
We’ve got the confused awakening, the rapid and enemy producing change in social status, the one friend who is in on the secret, and the love interest who can never know the truth.
The surprising thing was how well it all came together. I was expecting a lot of gratuity in this show, and was pleasantly surprised to find very little.
Even the level of melodrama was low. There is plenty of time for more melodrama later, of course, and the pilot does a good job of setting up the myriad relationships from which such drama could be spilled.
Some aspects of the plot are going to get very old if not handled carefully, but for now, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I didn’t expect much from MTV, but they delivered despite me.
Most of the credit goes to Tyler Posey who manages to make the protagonist werewolf a sympathetic, relatable, and ultimately likable character.
Most of the other actors are a little short of the mark for each of their roles, but this is normal for a pilot, and with Posey leading the cast, they are likely to each become more dynamic and interesting as the show progresses, as long as they continue to be well written.
As for a comparison to the near-ancient film of the same name, the connection is very loose. The sport is lacrosse, rather than basketball, and the mood is dark rather than campy. Other than the most basic threads of the premise, and the title, there is really very little that ties the two together.
Missed the pilot? You can still catch it on MTV’s website.
