sakurako-718-306418

When you make a "drama/horror/mystery" without any stakes, you done bleeped up. The first 1 minute of the movie sets up a restart button that makes everything that follows completely pointless and robs the viewer of any potential emotional investment. The only way one can feel any sort of fear or sadness is by skipping the beginning and sharing in the main character's apparent blackouts(as those do a pretty good job of making the whole thing feel imaginary, I half expected it to end with him in a mental institution or with her, waking up from a dream). The supposed environmental and/or biblical themes are both cliched and far too veiled to work out if one has not read/seen/heard interviews about the movie. 1/10 would not recommend.

The first 2 seasons are a solid 9/10. We are introduced to actual characters with distinct personalities and we get to watch them grow and change. The jock-bully becomes a protector, the attention wh*re learns to forgo the spotlight(or at least tries), the loners learns to ask for help, the logical science nerd embraces magic. Their motivations and personalities are clearly outlined, we get to see the effect they have on other people and how other people in turn affect them.

Then, season 3 happens. "in Series three we meet a whole new bunch of heroes who find themselves trapped in a totally empty world. We are proud to introduce a brand new cast which reflects a diverse and truthful portrait of Australia today."

Yes, Tony Ayres, it shows. We now have the black kid, the gay kid, the girl and the disabled kid. The girl is remarkably Mary Sue-like. Not only is she "the best player" on the school football team but she's also the best student and she's pretty and popular. Oh, and she's got more upper body strength than the boys. She also gets control of her magic really fast because she's just so smart and all, right? The gay kid has exactly 2 traits. He's gay. And he likes musicals. Because all the gays do, right? The disabled kid is the one that really makes me go "w0t?!" So, he's dyslexic. And nobody knows. There's a 15 year old kid who's somehow managed to fake he can read for the last 10 years and all the teachers were fooled?! But that's not even the worst. He's a 15 year old buy who hasn't figured out how text-to-speech works on his phone. The black kid is the most developed character of the 4 though I can't see a lot of growing potential in him as the outlined traits are not something that'd need to be changed. If anything, the plot of the series proves him right.

It's my fault, really, for having high hopes for this show. I went in expecting a witty, dark coming-of-age story that'd keep me on the edge of my seat. It is, however, none of those things.

The characters: The only character worth paying attention to is Ambrose. He gets a decent backstory, his motivations, dreams and hopes got me rooting for him. The rest of the characters are bland, one dimensional, they just exist. The black girl is black. The mean bully is mean. The boyfriend is in love. Sabrina is "special". That's it. Nobody else gets a proper backstory and there's never much of a reason for what they do. Except the demons. Who are very talkative and will tell you exactly what they are doing and why they are doing it. Which accidentally ruins the, in my opinion, best scene in the entire shows as you are made perfectly aware of how it's fake and it's only a matter of time before Sabrina saves the day.

The horror is disappointing. Since everything is spelled out, there's no suspense or thrill. I assumed they'd go for gore since that's Sabrina's favourite but, no. I mean, yes, they tried but compared to other gore-oriented horror shows, it just falls flat on its face. I never knew I could care this little about cannibalism.

The story: I'm still looking for it. Does it start in season 2?

As a side note: Whoever suggested they call the primary antagonist "the Dark Lord", should've been fired on the spot.

I wouldn't say it's overly political. I did recently watch Charmed 2018 so my bar might be exceptionally high. They do throw around social concepts but never follow through on them and forget them fast enough for it to have no impact on anything.