The 100: Series 1

I’m not much keen on reviewing shows and movies as there are people who do it much better, rather as I do with most of my posts I’m going to pick out the things I think are cool and comment on them, attempting to overview the series as I’m at it

The Ark A collection of space stations banded together after a nuclear war wiped out the human race, leaving the astronauts as the sole survivors, or so they thought. Years later the stations are failing, leading to a drastic solution.        I thought the Ark was a well realised setting, despite the multinational survivors all speaking with American accents, and it made for interesting characters forced to make terrible decisions with the ‘bad guys’ no more guilty than the good.

The 100 The 100 are a group of teens guilty of committing various crimes aboard the Ark. As population control is a big issue, most serious crimes are punishable by death, minors however are imprisoned until they are 18 and their case is reviewed. As ‘expendable’ population the 100 were sent to Earth to see if humans could survive in the surface, paving the way for others to return home.     The 100 brought a diverse group of characters together and again gave interesting motivations for the ‘bad guys’ who developed over time and put the main hero Clarke in the position of making some very unpleasant decisions Mutated Animals

After the devastation of nuclear war the Earth has been greatly changed and various mutations have taken place amongst its wildlife. Some strange, such as the two headed deer seen by the 100 on their first day, some dangerous like the massive river snake and some beautiful like luminous butterflies, but all significantly changed from before the war. I liked the array if animals in the 100 and that not all mutations had made the animals into killing machines. The first few episodes were starting to feel like a remake of After Earth but this was quickly balanced by turning the focus on the survivors and introducing other threats.

Grounders The ‘grounders’ as they are named by the 100, are survivors of the nuclear war that eradicated civilisation on Earth. The grounders have formed tribal societies. The woodland tribe came into conflict with the 100, despite attempts to negotiate. Other tribes include the cannibalistic ‘reapers’, a lake tribe and the mysterious ‘mountain men’ I liked the grounders (bar the reapers who are a rip-off of Firefly’s reavers – at least give them a less stereotypical name…) especially with Lincoln taking the side of the 100 and giving them a human face. The sophisticated ‘mountain men’ look to make series 2 very interesting. I really enjoyed the series, despite E4 attempting to put me off by saturating every add break with promos. The characters were engaging and the drama was consistently of a good standard with characters having believable motivations. It had the potential to become a postapoccalyptic soap opera but instead developed nicely into a convincing sci-fi survival drama. I look forward to series 2 and to getting my hands on the book some time