The Netflix teen drama has almost become a genre in and of itself. Between offerings such as “On My Block,” “Sex Education,” “13 Reasons Why,” and syndicated CW staples like “Riverdale,” the streaming network has found a solid niche in exploring the everyday lives of teenagers, in all their flailing, moody glory. “The Society,” Netflix’s compelling new drama from “Party of Five” co-creator Christopher Keyser, takes a grab bag of teen tropes and mixes it with “Lord of the Flies” and a vague dose of supernatural intrigue for good measure. Its premise even manages to sidestep the question of what to do with the parents, a typical teen show consideration that some shows (like “Riverdale”) answer by folding the older generation into the action just as much as their scheming kids. “The Society,” by contrast, banishes the adults altogether — and indeed, anyone but the central teens, period. At first, the show seems like a typical high school drama about the popular kids versus the burnouts versus the overachievers. But when a field trip drops the senior class back in an abandoned facsimile of the town they just left, with no way out or in, the teens of West Ham have to figure out how to live together without imploding under pressure. And after the requisite initial panic of apocalypse partying, both the characters and the series, to their credit, take that question incredibly seriously. (If you don’t trust me, trust the show’s reliance on dramatic handheld cameras.) Think “The 100,” but instead of juvenile delinquents learning how to function as a community, it’s wary rich kids flailing without their Ivy League plans. For a while, the existing social order remains intact. Class president Cassandra (Rachel Keller, “Legion”) tries to take the lead amongst the panic, setting off a chain of insecurities from her little sister Allie (Kathryn Newton, “Big Little Lies”) and popular pretty boy Harry (Alex Fitzalan). The jocks, united in their letterman jackets, band together as they’re so used to doing. Friendly nerds like Gordie (José Julián), Becca (Gideon Adlon, “Blockers”), and Sam (Sean Berdy) try to unpack the bizarre logistics of their situation. Social outcasts Campbell (Toby Wallace) and Elle (Olivia DeJonge) gravitate towards each other, for wont of better options. Despite — or maybe thanks to — their best efforts, their attempts to make a revolutionary new order end up looking an awful lot like the more rigid, heteronormative one in which they all grew up. Even as much as “The Society” spins its wheels — and with 10 episodes clocking in at a solid hour each encompassing a sprawling cast, it inevitably does — there just aren’t many other teen shows that routinely debate the advantages of capitalism versus socialism or democracy versus dictatorship. With the exception of a time jump deeper into the season, “The Society” rarely takes shortcuts while the teens figure out what it means to build a community from the ground up, and what the dynamics of their old world mean in this new one. Much of the series’ best material comes when the characters have to confront their privilege or lack thereof. Harry, who used to have everything, struggles to adjust to sharing his assets. Will (Jacques Colimon), a poorer orphan, embraces the opportunity to found a more equitable order. And some of the most interesting and revealing moments come from the reaction to Cassandra’s aggressively pragmatic solutions from all the disgruntled boys who resent her power and influence over their girlfriends. To them, the biggest threat isn’t whatever force brought them to this New Ham (a question the show entertains but isn’t wholly consumed by), but a smart girl with the audacity to tell them what to do. More than anything else on the show, the exploration of this dynamic (which I like to call “the Elizabeth Warren paradox”) feels both urgent and timely. All of this is wholly worthy and fascinating for a show like this to dive into. But after I watched all of “The Society” within 48 hours — which, to Netflix’s inevitable relief, is a relatively easy thing to do — I wasn’t nearly as invested in its story as I should’ve been. Few of the characters register as particularly compelling beyond their loglines; not even the aforementioned time jump, usually a storytelling device meant to shake things up, does all that much to meaningfully shift anyone’s particular arc. Take the jocks, who tend to blend into one dim bro. Many of the female characters — with the exceptions of Allie, Cassandra, and steadfast Christian Helena (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) — feel interchangeable. That just shouldn’t be the case after a few episodes, let alone ten solid hours of content that hinge on these particular characters being riveting enough to stand all on their own. “The Society” premieres Friday, May 10 on Netflix.<doc-sep>Oh, new Netflix teen drama The Society, how I love thee! Let me count the ways. There’s: The highly derivative high concept Let’s face it: we’re quite late in human history and all the good ideas have gone. Who needs constant innovation, anyway? Sometimes a gal just wants to kick back and relax. We need, absolutely, this tale of a group of high-schoolers (played, as hath been traditional unto the days of Dawson’s Creek and Beverly Hills 90210, by actors in their mid-20s) who arrive back in their New England hometown after a school trip to find that their parents, and every other non-buff, non-16-year-old soul has disappeared. Dum-dum-DAH! It’s Stephen King’s Under the Dome meets the CW’s The 100 meets Michael Grant’s Gone series meets Lost meets The Breakfast Club (everything teenage meets The Breakfast Club, still, even if it appears to 2019’s adolescents as Casablanca did to us) meets a billion other things, with Lord of the Flies waiting in the wings. It’s a sci-fi Dawson’s Creek, a supernatural Pretty Little Liars. It doesn’t matter – take your pick! Watch the trailer for The Society The people Who aren’t people. They are algorithms. Blond or brunette ciphers with diverse skintones, each allocated one defining characteristic or secret sorrow. In a main character, the two may be skilfully entwined. Cassandra, for example, has a Secret Heart Defect. Fortunately, brunette Gordie’s defining characteristic is noticing when girls he secretly likes go blue under stress. He is always around to help. Just to put your minds at rest, there are also jocks, mean girls, rebels without a cause, good Christians, party girls with hearts and hymens of gold and – of course – nerds holed up in the library trying to figure out what the hell is going on and make the jocks understand that a finite food supply in the supermarket is Not A Good Thing. The shameless illogic The phones that work only to let the characters communicate with each other. The absence of panic with which these abandoned teenagers greet their situation. The mysterious appearance and disappearance of graffiti around town assuring them that they are being judged in pretty much biblical fashion. The unfailingly clean, ironed clothes and full makeup for all. The lack of even the slightest attempt to clear the trees and bushes that are blocking the road out of town. Good! I have enough detail in my life. I don’t need it in my art. The inexplicable fondness arising There is something endearing about a programme so carefully and competently engineered to be not one iota better than it needs to be. It’s soothing to watch something run so efficiently, to know that not an ounce of effort, vision or budget has been uselessly expended, that no one’s life’s work is being set loose to roam the brutal TV landscape like a fragile gazelle, that no hearts are going to be broken, whatever ratings it does. We are free to enjoy or not, and I am grateful. And finally … There’s the suspected pregnancy, the golden boy who’s nastier than he looks and the nasty boy who’s nicer than he seems; the dramatic unexpected death; the eventual realisation of which older stars it is the youngsters remind one of (Allie is a dead ringer for Virginia Madsen; Cassandra is Sarah Paulson); the rigorous hewing to the pathetic fallacy as legitimate dramatic device. All of this and more makes for a brilliantly average, perfectly imperfect show for bouncing teens, cankered fortysomethings and nothing in between. A joy.<doc-sep>
Gossip Girl left a hole in my heart when it went off the air seven years ago. The popular CW series epitomized one of my favorite subgenres in entertainment: hot people running around with zero consequences. There hasn't been a show to come around since then that's hit quite the same spot for me…until now. On Friday, May 10, Netflix's latest drama The Society comes out, and Gossip Girl fans need—I repeat, need—to tune in. The show is essentially a more bonkers version of GG with a little bit of Riverdale and Lord of the Flies thrown in. It centers on a group of high school seniors from a wealthy suburb who are bused away for the weekend to the mountains. What soon follows, though, is terrifying: In lieu of a luxe hiking resort, the kids are dropped off in an exact replica of their town. Everything is the same (the buildings, the streets, the restaurants) with one big exception: No one else is there. Their parents, siblings, and other friends have all disappeared. There's no cell phone reception, no Wi-Fi. They don't even have cable. Freaky, right? Well, these kids don't think so at first. Instead, they revel in the lack of parental supervision, much as the Gossip Girl characters did for years. They throw a party at the town's church, which turns into quite the scene: a fantasia of underage debauchery and Natty Light. But the hangovers come quick, and so does the revelation that all is not well. What starts out as sheer ecstasy soon becomes a nightmare, and the descent into chaos begins. Netflix To be clear, there's nothing relatable about The Society. I didn't identify with any of the characters (all hot, all troubled—Blair Waldorf is shaking in her Louboutins). I didn't feel particularly moved by any of the narratives. What I did experience after the first episode, though, was a rush of dopamine: the type of high only a show like Gossip Girl—with its froth and illogical stakes and chiseled jawlines—can deliver. Pop culture these days is filled with relatable programming: movies and TV shows designed to make us feel seen and less alone. Don't get me wrong, we still need that content desperately, but sometimes it's nice to escape into a world so steamy and far-fetched, you forget about your problems. That's what Gossip Girl was for me in 2007. And that's what The Society is for me now. Riverdale is perhaps the only current show that matches The Society's level of camp and ridiculousness (I mean that in the most complimentary way, obviously). When I tune into Archie and the gang's shenanigans every week, I'm looking to dissociate a little bit—transport to a world where everyone's ripped and 17-year-olds own and operate speakeasies. The eye rolls and jaw drops are part of what makes Riverdale so addictive and fun. The Society follows this exact formula to gangbusters results.