written by Juan Ayala
The X-Men franchise has had several hits and misses over the years since it’s first film back in 2000 starring Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen and Famke Jannsen. It has since spawned two sequels, and then a prequel, X-Men: First Class, which focused on launched a new timeline that had two more sequels. Several spin-offs for the iconic character Wolverine were also created, including an origin story and a sequel to it. What hasn’t done so well lately are their television series. ABC’s Inhumans has already been panned by critics and audiences alike from it’s pre-television premiere on IMAX screens across the country.
The X-Men franchise has had several hits and misses over the years since it’s first film back in 2000 starring Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen and Famke Jannsen. It has since spawned two sequels, and then a prequel, X-Men: First Class, which focused on launched a new timeline that had two more sequels. Several spin-offs for the iconic character Wolverine were also created, including an origin story and a sequel to it. What hasn’t done so well lately are their television series. ABC’s Inhumans has already been panned by critics and audiences alike from it’s pre-television premiere on IMAX screens across the country.
FOX premiered a new series
titled Gifted, which takes place
in a world where the government hunts down and imprisons mutants for their
powers. The episode starts off with a Blink, a young mutant with
portal-summoning abilities, on the run from police after escaping from a
detention center. Eclipse, Polaris and Thunderbird, members of an underground
mutant group, find her and offer help when one of them is wounded and another
is captured. Polaris then meets Reed Strucker (Stephen Moyer), a district attorney who asks
for her cooperation in order for a reduced sentence.
We then meet Strucker’s
wife Caitlin (Amy Acker) and children Lauren (Natalie Alyn Lind) and Andy (Percy Hynes White). When at the school dance, Andy is
attacked by bullies and out of anger his telekinetic abilities begin to manifest, tearing
down the walls around him and sending the entire school into a quake. Lauren
goes to find her brother and is forced to use her force field abilities as
well. The two return home and confess their powers to their mother. Sentinel
Services, a federal government branch that imprisons mutants, arrives at their
home and the family is forced to go on the run and into hiding. Reed enlists
the help of Eclipse to get his family to safety in exchange for information on
Polaris’ whereabouts.
Stephen Moyer, Percy Hynes White, Natalie Alyn Lind and Amy Acker in Gifted
Eclipse meets the family,
ready to extract them out of the country but Sentinel Services tracks them
down. Thunderbird and Blink arrive to help them, getting all of them to a safe
location, except for Reed who is shot and captured before Blink’s portal
closes.
What’s interesting about
this series is that it is connected to the existing X-Men film franchise, much how Agent’s Of S.H.I.E.L.D. takes places in the Marvel Cinematic
Universe. Bryan Singer, who directed X-Men and X-Men 2 among
other films in the franchise, directed the first episode of the series. He
added a cinematic touch to the premiere episode that was needed for the less fantastical and more grounded tone that the series is conveying, despite having people with superpowered abilities.
Showrunner Matt Nix has
brought lesser-known mutant heroes to the spotlight by creating a world where
the X-Men we all know and love have disappeared. He particularly wanted to
highlight Blink, who was only briefly seen in X-Men: Days of Future Past along with a new generation of mutants. Simon Kinberg, executive producer of FX’s Legion, which is also set in the X-Men film universe, served as an EP on Gifted, alongside Matt Nix, Bryan Singer and Stan Lee, who made a brief cameo appearance as well.
The
first episode, written by Nix and titled ‘eXposed’ is incredibly well paced and is a great introduction to these characters we've never seen on screen before. It has just enough of the X-Men lore that it isn't throwing it in your face, which again comes from the Nix's writing and Singer's direction. Even the 'villains' of the series so far, Sentinel Services, in past adaptations of the X-Men, Sentinels are massive, mutant-killing robots, where here it's a group of government agents. That may come at some point in the future but for now, it feels real and not so much like a fantasy.
The cast is very well
rounded as well, with no weak links coming to mind, but no astounding
performances either. I try going in to new series with a blank slate and expect
nothing groundbreaking. You get surprised more often that way. All in all this
was a fantastic first episode and I look forward to where the series goes, as
it’s currently ordered for ten episodes only, which means it won’t get
stretched out and unnecessarily expanded for 13 or 23 like some series have in
the past. If the advanced screenings of Inhumans left a bad taste in your mouth, watch Gifted.