Misfits Walking
Being slightly bored and completely out of cash I've taken to downloading more TV shows to watch. I haven't gone back to Breaking Bad yet. I don't know why but somehow it's dark humor is a little too much dark and not enough humor for me. Maybe it's because I can't really identify with the characters.
So I dug through the lists of popular shows to find something else.
House is high on the list and I remember enjoying it when it started years ago, but it's up to it's umpteenth season now and I just don't feel like diving into that deep of a pool.
Most of the other shows I already have.
I've heard plenty of positive things about Sons of Anarchy and I've been slightly tempted, but ... not just yet.
Then I lit on a show I hadn't heard of before: Misfits.
Yeah, I know, once again I'm late to the party. But I'm still here, ain't I?
It's another British production and yet another one done very well. I'm beginning to think I'm a British person at heart.
The premise of Misfits is as unlikely as it gets. But then that's nothing new about shows I love.
Five young adults, just on the tipping point of 20 years, find themselves convicted of minor crimes and committed to six weeks of community service. On their first day a very bizarre storm blows up dropping grocery cart sized boulders of hail. As they all run for cover they, and their social worker, get blown off their collective feet by a bolt of lightning.
The storm, of course, transforms them all and each of them develops a single super power.
It's Heroes with real world grit. And humor. They're convicted criminals and they act like it. Not that they set out to commit crimes with their powers. Instead, they're doing their best to look out for themselves and keep things as low key as possible. And they really don't want their powers.
The fact that they have to kill their social worker as he turns into a crazed psycho straight out of "28 Days Later" doesn't help them. In fact they end up killing each of the social workers assigned to them, although never by intent.
I know, I'm giving away too much and I should stop, but you see it coming anyway. At least I did. This is not to say that the writing is predictable. It most certainly is not. There is no true love story, no heroic adventure with epic battles, there isn't a horror monster and there isn't a buddy cop adventure. There's five post teen slacker screw ups who have no skills, hopes, or plans for the future. They drag their asses through the day and tick the minutes off until their time is done and they can go home.
The writing is both grim and witty, subtle and crude.
Nathan is the asshole, and he plays it well. There's a lot of moments where you just wish he'd shut the fuck up. He's the coarse friend we all have who's embarrassing to be seen in public with but who is nonetheless very loyal. You get to learn why he's such a prick but you also feel like smacking him on the back of his head, hard, and telling him to get the fuck over it. He never does.
You also don't find out what his power is until the last episode of the season. I won't say more than that as the reveal of his power is a major plot point.
Curtis was a rising star in sports, an Olympic class sprinter, who screws it all up by getting arrested and convicted for drug possession. In moments of emotional crisis he can rewind time along his own personal time line and, on occasion, change the past. It's a curse, though, and one the writers played very well with. If he gets stuck with an emotional situation he runs the risk of never getting out of it. In one episode he tries to break up with his old girlfriend and the moment she starts to cry he starts to feel guilty. The moment he feels guilty his power automatically kicks in and he rewinds to some time before breaking up with her. His own personal groundhog day of hell ecapsulated in five minutes of awkward, emotional arguments.
If there's one thing Brits know how to film it's awkward moments. It's like they're master class at being social misfits. Or genius at knowing what it's like to be human while simultaneously brave enough to show it raw and unfiltered. They seem to have the courage to take that awkward moment and stretch it to real life proportion. There are times it's physically uncomfortable to watch, but you're dying to see how it plays out.
Kelly is the very crude girl from the very wrong side of the tracks. The different accents available in England is staggering, and some of them are virtually incomprehensible. Kelly's accent makes her sound like she's talking with a mouth partially paralyzed by a stroke. It's like trying to understand a deep native Newfoundlander or a Pikey from Snatch. Sometimes I only get to understand what she's saying from context.
She's also the toughest of the five and has no reservations against just hauling off and punching people.
Kelly gets cursed with the power of telepathy and can hear what other people are thinking. Add a violent temper on top of that and you'll find her punching people out for seemingly no reason. Imagine if, instead of Counselor Troi, you had Warf with the ability to hear what people were thinking.
Alisha is the tarted up young slut who's always going to the clubs and using boys up like cheap tissues. She's too good for anyone and lets everyone know it. She has her cell phone glued to her hand, either talking or texting, and doesn't give a shit about anyone.
She winds up with a power that makes anyone touching her insanely drawn to her, sexually. Which almost sounds like she's just a more intense version of her original self, but it also means she's a guaranteed victim of rape if anyone touches her. Period.
It's quite fascinating when, in the second season, she meets someone who isn't affected by her powers.
Simon is the most interesting of them all. A weird loner kid, socially awkward in every way, he develops the power to become invisible. It takes them all a while to notice since they normally ignore him anyway. It isn't until he finds he can't see himself in a mirror that he realizes it isn't just social.
He's also the intelligent one of the group and the one who comes up with plans and solutions. He's also the one who grows the most as a character.
I've watched one and a half seasons of the show so far, and there are only two seasons available. I'm trying to slow it down so I don't blow through all of them in one weekend but it's damned hard to stop. I'm having to force myself to stop and perform some chore in order to earn the next episode. If I didn't, nothing would get done.
Like this journal entry for example.
Sleep machine progress remains slow. I've determined that the apertures of the new, softer mask are definitely smaller than the apertures of the old, hard mask. This makes it very hard to breathe out. I've yet to manage more than twenty minutes with it. On the plus side switching back to the old mask makes it feel much better and I've managed two whole nights with it on. Well, up to six am anyway. This morning I took it off at six and slept in for another three hours. But it's the weekend, I'm allowed.
My next appointment with the sleep merchant isn't until April 12th so I have a few weeks to try and get used to it. Slow progress is still progress and I'm not giving up.
Still tired as fuck when I get up in the morning, though.