Count on ‘The 100’
Read critic Robert Bianco’s
After what feels like the 100th variation on the same show, CW finally got it startlingly right.
Granted, you could be forgiven if you are ready, sight unseen, to dismiss The 100 as yet another excuse to plant pretty young people in some sci-fi/fantasy universe where a battle between good and evil plays out behind their more essential efforts to hook up.
Give The 100 time. It gets better, digs deeper and reaches farther than anyone might have predicted. Created by Jason Rothenberg,
The 100 is set 97 years after the apocalypse, as a few thousand survivors circle the Earth on a massive space station. With this “ark” now dying, Chancellor Jaha (Isaiah Washington) is persuaded by his chief medical officer Abby (Paige Turco) to exile the 100 juveniles being held in jail down to Earth to see if it’s livable.
So down they go, in a group including Abby’s daughter Clarke (Eliza Taylor), Jaha’s son Wells (Eli Goree), free-spirited Finn (Thomas McDonell), rebellious Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos) and Octavia’s controlling brother Bellamy (Bob Morley), who soon establishes himself as King of the Colony. Immediately, the battle lines are drawn above and below: Between Abby and Jaha’s ambitious second-in-command, Kane (Henry Ian Cusick), between Clarke and Bellamy, and between the newly repatriated teens and the animals (and “Grounders”) they encounter on Earth.
Yet one of the welcome twists in 100 is that life in the future isn’t some simple-minded split between chaos and draconian dictatorship. People and governments waver between goodwill and bad instincts. And that sense of nuance applies to the characters, who are more complicated than the initial bad-boy, good-girl distinction between Bellamy and Clarke or the wise woman/cruel autocrat line between Abby and Kane. Complex questions are raised about the rights of the individual vs. the good of the community, and blessedly, no easy answers are offered.
These people are in a life-anddeath situation, and The 100 does not shy away from choosing death when the story demands. And if death comes because they’re blissfully wandering around a planet they know nothing about, well, they are kids.
For all its strengths, The 100 is a teen drama on a teen-targeted network, which means it does sometimes pause for silly romantic complications when you’d rather it kept speeding along.
The older actors tend to be more proficient, with Turco, Washington and Cusick all standouts. Still, after a few rough spots, the younger actors do show the promise of being an appealing lot.
With its well-developed premise, its interest in broader philosophical themes, and its avoidance of gore and violence, 100 feels more like a throwback to the old Star Trek than an extension of CW’s teen obsessions. And it could be one CW show the whole family can enjoy.