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>Netflix’s new show “The Society” had a very solid first season. WARNING: THERE WILL BE SOME SPOILERS BELOW. DON’T KEEP READING IF YOU AREN’T CAUGHT UP. As I wrote a couple days ago, I banged out the first couple episodes and was very impressed. The rest of the season didn’t disappoint after I binge watched it these past three days. The plot revolves around a large group of high school kids who return home to their Connecticut town to find all the adults missing. They were shipped out on a trip as the adults dealt with a mysterious smell, and returned to find everybody missing. It’s “Lord of the Flies” set in a modern time with a bit of a supernatural twist. First, let’s get into what I really liked about this show. There are two questions that are constantly batted around through the ten episodes. The first one is what the hell happened? Where are the parents? Where are the kids? Are they in an alternate reality? Are they on a different planet? Are the parents all dead? Can they get back? The question of what the hell happened is the biggest question of the season, but it really takes a backseat to what they’re going to do in their new reality. We’ll get back to these questions more later. The most pressing issue throughout the first season is who is going to be in charge. The show really excelled in these plot lines. One one side, we had Allie, Will, Gordie and her loyal bodyguards The Guard running the show. Allie took over after her sister was brutally murdered, which Allie avenges by ordering the execution of the shooter. Yes, a high school girl ordered and carried out a sanctioned execution as the head of the town. She at first unwillingly takes over, but slowly turns into a dictator as she realizes absolute authority is the only way to rule. She’s not a brutal or evil dictator. She just recognizes the fact there isn’t a lot of room for negotiation if everybody is expected to survive winter. (RELATED: Netflix’s New Series ‘The Society’ Is A Fascinating Look At Anarchy) Enter Campbell and Harry into the picture. Campbell is an absolute nut job psychopath, but he might be the smartest character on the whole show. His girlfriend Elle tries to murder him with anti-freeze, and he still vouches for her because he recognizes she’s just as screwed up as he is. Slowly, he gets the ball rolling on a coup, convinces Allie’s bodyguards to join him, installs Harry and another woman as fake leaders of the town and places Allie under arrest. One of the questions here that isn’t clearly answered is whether or not his girlfriend Elle was in on the whole thing or not. She was placed under fake arrest by Allie because she told a story about how abusive he was. Campbell uses this arrest in part to justify the coup, and in the closing moments of the show it doesn’t look like Elle fears him at all as they laid in bed together. Was she in on this the whole time? Hard to tell, but I imagine we’ll get that answer in season two. There’s no doubt Campbell is the most fascinating character on the show and now he’s the man running the show from behind a curtain. In the final moments, we learn whether or not the kids have left or the parents did. Parents are shown wearing yellow ribbons as they read to young children and on the wall is a memorial to all the missing students. This is a clear sign the parents never went anywhere. It was the kids who were transported to an alternate reality and the parents just assume they’re all dead or missing. All in all, I loved the first season of “The Society” on Netflix. There were some bumps along the way. There was an insanely unnecessary, forced and pointless gay storyline that didn’t make much sense, it was a bit too dramatic at times and people seemed way too calm at other times. Again, this is a story about teenagers fighting for survival. Yet, there wasn’t ever a ton of a panic. I find that to be unrealistic. I think we all know in reality people would have armed up immediately. Overall, I give it a solid 7.5/10. It’s not known yet if we’ll get a second season, and it could work without one, but the door is open for more episodes if that’s the way Netflix goes. I suggest you give it a chance if you haven’t already. Follow David Hookstead on Twitter<doc-sep>In new Netflix TV series The Society, Gen Z tackles systems of government, the accrual of power, and the will to survive. Catch-22 RELEASE DATE: 5/17/2019 DIRECTOR: George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Ellen Kuras STREAMING: Hulu The new miniseries adaptation of Joseph Heller’s classic novel succeeds thanks to strong direction and Christopher Abbott’s riveting lead performance. After turning around from a canceled class field trip, a group of teenagers arrives in a town that’s a duplicate of their own New England hometown West Ham—except all the adults are missing and the roads out of town have been blocked off by a seemingly never-ending forest. At first, that calls for an all-night rager in the local church, but as the days go by the teens realize their parents aren’t coming to rescue them and they have to take charge. The Society’s first few episodes are hard to enjoy. There are too many characters to keep track of and the show producers relied heavily on stereotypes to set up relationships. There’s the student council president everyone hates but trusts to get things done; the rich guy who expects everything to be handed to him; popular jocks; well-intentioned geeks; and toxic recluses. It’s a contrived oversimplification of young people. But then the plot gets rolling and the larger themes around the show become more interesting. Netflix has billed The Society as a modern take on William Golding’s novel The Lord of the Flies. In Golding’s novel, a group of British boys are stranded on an island and challenged to self-govern themselves. The novel explores the conflicting values of civilization and self-organization versus a primal instinct for individual autonomy and chaos. The Society explores that same conflict from a contemporary perspective. If anyone has ever wondered what the United States would look like if Gen Z’ers like David Hogg or Emma Gonzalez woke up one morning and became the de facto leaders of a new community, The Society gives you a glimmer of an idea. In the show, the teenagers start off idealistic and decide to form a socialist society where everyone equally shares the work and food. It works perfect, in theory, as long as everyone agrees to maintain a level of morality. But unfortunately, just like in cities across the world, there will always be people who do not want to play fairly when they feel they are owed more than someone else. Unlike The Lord of the Flies, the community of self-proclaimed New Ham has to deal with a few new challenges. For one, Golding said he wrote an all-male cast because he didn’t want sex to become a factor. In New Ham, sex is very much a factor that comes into play. Interestingly, women take a natural charge of the town, motivated by a fear of testosterone gone wild. New Ham also has to reckon with the existence of weapons—and it makes a damn good case against arming teenagers with guns. The large cast of teens is led by Kathryn Newton—who also recently appeared as the lead in Detective Pikachu—who plays Allie, a younger teen who becomes the leader of the new society against her wishes. Newton did an overall good job portraying a young woman who is forced to take on an unprecedented amount of responsibility, making decisions about how to keep her peers alive and how to punish those who threaten their safety. Unfortunately, the show’s cast lacks diversity and is mostly white. But show creator Christopher Keyser put marginalized voices in the mix, with several key characters who take charge in New Ham being people of color. The biggest standout of the series is Sam, played by deaf actor Sean Berdy. Sam is surrounded by friends who have learned American Sign Language to communicate with him and his storyline goes beyond exploring the life of a deaf teenager. Disabled people are the most overlooked minority in Hollywood, and it’s refreshing to see a deaf actor play a lead in a TV series. As it explores the clash between self-government and autonomy, The Society provides its characters with a new place with no history of broken systems and an opportunity to create a new structure of co-existing. It is both fascinating and frustrating to watch the teens build an idealistic world and then struggle to maintain their values. Still not sure what to watch tonight? Here are our guides for the absolute best movies on Netflix, must-see Netflix original series, documentaries, docuseries, and movies. Need more ideas? Here are our Netflix guides for the best war movies, documentaries, anime, indie flicks, true crime, food shows, gangster movies, Westerns, and movies based on true stories streaming right now. There are also sad movies guaranteed to make you cry, weird movies to melt your brain, and standup specials when you really need to laugh. Or check out Flixable, a search engine for Netflix.<doc-sep>
Take "13 Reasons Why," add a "Lord of the Flies" twist, and mix in some "Lost" for good measure. Netflix may have built its original series initially around adults, but these days, it really loves teens — especially teens who behave badly. That’s the cornerstone of “The Society,” a series constructed around the premise of what happens to 200 teenagers who think they’re going on a school field trip, and are instead deposited in a carbon copy version of their small town, except with no adults and no younger children around. Things aren’t too bad at first for the teens — the power is still on, and there’s a supermarket full of food — but the situation quickly takes on new urgency as they slowly realize that they’ve been completely cut off from the rest of the world. How, exactly, the teens ended up in this mirror universe is one question that only sort of haunts the series, as eventually the mystery behind its premise gets de-emphasized in favor of the kids discovering that their survival will require some heavy duty growing up, fast. This theoretically makes the show a microcosm for discussing philosophical issues surrounding the creation of a society like this, as well as an opportunity to explore the nature of power, as factions arise and battle is waged for control. And while the show drags a bit in its early episodes, as the teens keep getting distracted from the bigger issues by their interpersonal woes, the pacing improves dramatically in the back half of the season as the drama escalates. Seacia Pavao/Netflix “Are we in an episode of ‘Riverdale’ or in Soviet Russia?” one teen asks, and the answer ends up being far more the latter. To “The Society’s” credit, its commitment to exploring the big questions raised by the premise, specifically in regards to how the kids might come to manage each other and their resources, is unquestionable — because while initially led by Cassandra (Rachel Keller), the ad-hoc society quickly develops life and death stakes. (A note: For those who find violence in school settings triggering, “The Society” won’t be an easy watch.) The show’s characters, despite being played by many not-exactly teenagers — Keller’s casting as a girl just out of high school feels particularly out of place after her breakout roles as older characters in “Fargo” and “Legion” — feel extremely teenager-y. And the vast nature of the cast, combined with a notable lack of diversity (the cast could be better served by a larger percentage of people of color) occasionally makes it hard to track individual characters — an issue not made easier by the fact that many of the characters lack much in the way of definition. (Like, how many jocks in letter jackets are there, exactly?) However, there are some standouts within the cast, including Kathryn Newton (most recently seen as Reese Witherspoon’s spirited daughter in “Big Little Lies”) as Allie, who finds herself having to step up in order to keep the town from descending into chaos. Seacia Pavao/Netflix Meanwhile Toby Wallace, as resident sociopath Campbell, develops well into his role as a charmingly evil villain. Another strong supporting player who deserves a lot more screen time than she gets is Salena Qureshi as Bean, and Sean Berdy from “Switched at Birth” gets to play a character whose hearing impairment is not his sole defining quality. (The show’s casual embrace of the nuances of sign language is one of its best details.) Too gritty and dark to have much fun scratching the pleasant itch of teen soap tropes, “The Society’s” adult content keep it from feeling like a natural fit for a network like the CW (though it does stir up memories of that network’s “The 100”). From the pilot directed by Marc Webb (“The Amazing Spider-man,” “500 Days of Summer,” the latter film making a cameo appearance later in the season), it feels slightly better in its execution than really necessary — though, no spoilers for the end of the season, but there are plenty of questions left unresolved, to an almost unsatisfying degree. That said, at a certain point the drama does get addictive, as the show eventually reveals what it’s really about: a grim reckoning with the fact that these teens have had to grow up too fast. And these days, with climate change and school shootings and a government that’s rotting from the inside, teens today might find “The Society” painfully relatable.