Saturday Special: In Which I Fangirl Over a Scientifically Inclined Retelling of X-Men

Remember when I asked if anyone knew of any good sci-fi retellings of well-known stories? Lookie what I found...

For details, click HERE. And HERE.
(It isn't YA or MG, it's adult. But I suppose beggars can't be choosers.)

I don't have access to the SyFy channel, so when I found the first season of Alphas streaming on Netflix yesterday, I wasn't sure what to expect. I'd never heard of the show before (why are people not talking about this?!). Based on the little blurb box from Netflix, I thought it might interest me.

And it delivered. Beautifully.

I watched the pilot episode at my sister's house while the Baby Niece was taking a nap. Anytime you have a story that revolves around a group of people like this, the initial startup has to effectively, and quickly, introduce why each character is unique. I thought they did this very well. I was immediately hooked by each of their unique abilities and personalities.

Once the first episode's story got moving, my sister said, "It's like X-Men."

"How do you mean?" I asked (and I didn't know until I looked up the trailer on YouTube, linked above, that this series was created by the same people who made one of the X-Men movies, haha)

"Well, it's a group of humans who have superhuman abilities, and they're led by this doctor guy who keeps them all in line, and they work together to solve crimes. So he's kind of like Professor Xavier and the rest of them are the X-Men and they're all fighting evil."

For the record, my younger sister and I were total-obsessed fangirls of X-Men when we were kids.

I thought this over for a minute. And realized she was exactly right. Alphas is a remake of X-Men, but more scientifically inclined and less cartoonish, and therefore, more awesome. One might argue that X-Men is scientific, but Alphas is more about brain science than anything else, which makes it feel more realistic and intelligent. This also makes it feel like a new idea when it really isn't.

I'm always amazed by this. There truly are "no new ideas, only new ways of presenting them." Also amazing? My sister's brain. She is crazy-smart when it comes to identifying patterns. But that's another story for another day.

If you haven't yet seen the series, catch it on Netflix before they take it down. Or watch it on SyFy. In addition to being a fantastically clever rendition of the superhero concept, each individual episode (of what I've seen so far) is a stellar example of well-crafted storytelling.

I dare any fiction writer to not learn something from it.

Happy TV viewing,
~Lydia