Heathers

I went into this show prepared to hate it, I'm a huge fan of the film and the musical and from the first trailer the glaring differences were clear. So, as a bit of a joke, I watched it. And it was good?

It has flaws- the dialogue can be odd, some characters actions come out of left field and some of the filming choices are questionable but- it's funny.

A huge gripe I and many people had were that the Heathers (popular generic mean girls) had become minorities, it was unrealistic, cruel and had a very boomer-vibe ("the bullies these days are all snowflakes desperate for likes") but these Heathers aren't a clique of popular girls who run the school, they're just trying to survive whilst projecting their image- people don't respect them and they don't respect themselves or each other. It's a school full of kids with more money than identity trying to figure out how to fit in, no one is popular for more than about 3 scenes.

It doesn't follow the original in any way but spirit. It, like the film and musical, is a comment on society: both the fast paced cancel culture of the young and the apathetic pretenses of all the adults in the show. It losely hits the plot points of the movie and has mostly the same names but besides that it's a different story with very different characters (Veronica in particular so don't expect her to be an audience stand in, she's very much doing her own thing)

My advice: if you're a fan of the original/musical skip the pilot (you're not missing much that you don't already know and it suffers the most from the boomer-ness) and enjoy a dark twisty Heathers-ish AU that has an ending more satisfying than either of its predecessors.

Obviously, if you take a movie and stretch it into 10 episodes at 40 minutes each, there has to be twists and turns that didn't happen in the original. Get over it.

The narrative has been updated for millennials, using social media references and lingo that people who grew up with the original film didn't have. You'd have to ask a millennial if they pull that off. Personally, I found it interesting and relevant.

I'm interested to see how the rest of the season develops as I've only watched a couple of eps so far.

Very cool rework of an 80's hit. Resonates deeply with a lot of issues and stigmas in today's society. Critically, this has received some harsh reviews and I'm not really sure why? I would really like to see how this show continues, even into a second season. I'm a little confused on how this show is described as an "anthology," but maybe a second season would explain that.

As I'm writing this review I have watched only the first episode and I have to say that while I understand all the hate it has received, I believe that it's a little to early to judge it so harshly. Of course it doesn't come even close to the quality of Heathers (1988) but that was to be expected. So I saw this episode with the mindset that I will see Heathers done in an alternate reality ,to enjoy the new paths they are taking the story to, and I actually had fun, since I didn't expect the twists in the end. All the forced references they put in there, I believe it was to put them out of the way so after that they make their own unique story of Heathers. In my opinion this could be this summer's new trashy teen show that we can watch for fun like Scream Queens and Scream two years back, but I believe this has the potential to to be even better than those two shows.

In conclusion I believe if you enjoyed Scream or Scream Queens , you should give Heathers a chance. Definitely don't expect anything thought provoking or something as clever as Heathers but Heathers could be a fun time.

It is honestly not as bad as I thought it would be based on the trailer! Though yes I have only seen the one episode but I found it comical and it made new modern commentary.