It would seem that dystopian teenagers have taken over the world, with books and movies like The Hunger Games and Divergent taking over the world. In fact, it's safe to say teenagers in general have taken over the world with the popularity of the Twilight saga, the Harry Potter series, and the Percy Jackson & the Olympians two series. The main series I'm writing does indeed have teenagers as the focus. So I don't hate it, necessarily. I've just grown bored of dystopia.
Some people, thus, consider The 100 to be the CW's attempt at something of The Hunger Games or Divergent. And I would tell them that they are very wrong. Though the lead is a female and though her love interest is fairly obvious because the two obviously don't like each other right now, the premises of both of these stories are extremely different. First of all, The 100 is not dystopian. It is post-apocalyptic, so really, it should be likened to The Maze Runner series, as there are several similarities.
The premise of all of this is that 97 from when the episode begins, there was a nuclear war that apparently wiped clean the Earth as we know it. Only 12 nations had a plan and thus combined their power to create a space station above the Earth known as the Ark. Now, 100 criminal teenagers--anyone over the age of 18 convicted for a crime is sentenced to death--are sent down to see if Earth is habitable again.
No, there isn't someone who goes against the grain to fight back. And no, there isn't that special someone that is going to change the course of destiny for the show.
In fact, I think that the show mocks this notion. Our main hero, Clarke, is focused. She wants to save the Ark and everyone on it, because she has hope for humanity. Her friends follow along with her because she is so focused on getting supplies for the 100 (actually the 98 because two people died before getting to Earth) to survive and have a possible life on Earth for the first time in forever.
So does that mean that the Ark has all the good guys? No. Of course not. The show, kind of like Arrow, has two villains in two places. On Arrow our villain is Brother Blood and his boss (won't say because spoilers) meanwhile on the island our villain is Ivo. Here, on The 100, our villains are Kane and Bellamy. Kane is on the Ark and Bellamy is on Earth. Both have very different purposes, and both actually hate each other. Kane wants control of the Ark and Bellamy is trying to escape punishment from the Ark while also letting the 100 have their own rules, willing to kill whoever stops him.
Thus, the show mocks the "chosen one" aspect through these two. They think they are the ones who can rise up and save everyone, when really, they're going to kill everyone to do it. You would think that Clarke would be the one to do it, but, really, she's following orders. And I like that. Similar to Thomas, who wound up following orders without knowing it, Clarke knows what has to be done, that the Earth is dangerous and that they have to tread lightly. She isn't a renegade.
So how does this pilot hold up? I would say very well. Though heavy in exposition, it also allows for us to get who is going to fill what role in the show. Clarke is our heroine. Finn is our love-interest/ fighter. Octavia is our antagonist-to-turn protagonist. Jasper is our geek friend who wants to get with the hot girl (Octavia) and Monty is our comic relief/ chill guy. Wells is the friend who is probably gonna die, and Clarke's mom is the only sensable person on the Ark.
There aren't too many familiar faces (at least for me, anyway). The only person I recognized was Kelly Hu, who is China White on Arrow. But I like, so far, how everyone is working. I really enjoy Clarke's character because, though I know it'll probably happen sometime, she is very focused. There were quite a few Finn-Clarke moments but it seemed that the romance element is evading her for now. I like that we know who is who but we don't know what they're capable of. Octavia is a wildcard, so far, as is Bellamy. He has 93 people at his disposal.
Given what we know at the end of this episode, or at least what we see, it's safe to say this show has the possibility of getting very interesting very fast. Apparently the Ark is dying and the kids are not alone on Earth, with cool tribal people ready to take them out in a fight. I like that they are bringing in two conflicts and hope that they can converge sooner or later, similar to how the flashbacks do in Arrow. Needless to say, I'm very excited to see where The 100 goes and for the future of post-apocalyptic media.
See you next time!
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