Super-Powered Television: Misfits episode 1

I’ve wanted to watch Misfits ever since I first learned of the show’s existence from Rich Johnston over at Bleeding Cool. That was well before it began airing in 2009 on E4 in Britain, but even then I had a feeling that it would be a show worth watching.

I waited impatiently for a DVD release… a release that still hasn’t come. Fortunately however, the show has found a home in the United States thanks to the online television site Hulu. Over the summer, Misfits is one of several new international series that the site is streaming on American shores for the first time.

It’s as good as I suspected it to be.

The first episode sets up the premise: three young men and two young women are working off community service hours at a local community center. A freakish electrical storm falls over London as they work and the five are struck by its lightning.

Over the course of the episode, our leads slowly start to uncover their powers. Kelly can hear people’s thoughts. Simon can turn invisible. Curtis can rewind time. Alisha causes overwhelming sexual arousal to people that touch her. Nathan… well Nathan doesn’t appear to have powers as of yet.

The social worker assigned to the five main cast members also transforms due to the storm, but his transformation forces an animalistic aggression. He tries to first kill Kelly, then the rest of the cast.

Of course, our cast has to work together to stop him, but in the process they find themselves members of a pact that keeps them tied together.

Despite limited experience before they started on the show, the five young actors all play their characters to perfection. Everyone moves and operates in very believable ways as they interact with the people around them and their new powers.

The show gets off to a good, solid start. That being said, pilots often show the best of a series, so let’s see if the show continues to produce as solid, tight scripts as this one.