Misfits - General Discussion

[ursula]

On 6/13/2017 at 8:42 AM, doram said:

You are absolutely brilliant. The minds behind The Magicians would have done a perfect reboot of this show and improved the series! I remember Lev Grossman even loved the changes they made to the books in the show. Heck, I can even draw parallels between the characters: Nathan is like Elliot - debauchery with dry wit; Simon is definitely Quentin; Curtis is a nicer version of Penny; Nikki is Margo; Kelly is like a more aggressive version of Kady; although Alisha really stands apart as her own character. I can't see any direct parallels to her personality. Superficially, I would have said Margo but since we never see Alisha in her former element as a social queen.

Gosh, now I really wish I was looking forward to a version of this show being done by the Magicians's showrunners & I'm just sad that we're getting another sanitized white-washed Freeform show. 

Thank you.

I think your side by side character comparators are brilliant, too! In fact, The Magicians and the Misfits are so similar in tone and style - "socially dysfunctional tweens with superpowers" that I'm surprised that no one has compared the similarities between the two more. 

I really wish that that a reboot would make the original version more cohesive. There were too many monster-of-the-week episodes and no longer over-arching narrative. I think after his ideas of making Simon a Big Bad in season 1 & then Nathan leaving, Overman decided to just stick to easily resolved, series-long arcs, not show-long arcs. 

Sadly, I don't see Freeform doing this. Their adaptation of Shadowhunters has been atrocious. They've messed up the source mythology, and all the character beats to make it a poor man's CWTV Vampire-Diaries-esque show.

[Doyounot]

5 minutes ago, ursula said:

Sadly, I don't see Freeform doing this. Their adaptation of Shadowhunters has been atrocious. They've messed up the source mythology, and all the character beats to make it a poor man's CWTV Vampire-Diaries-esque show.

Never watched shadowhunters but man freeform sounds like its not the channel for me. If they butcher misfits im gonna be pissed I was all excited when i heard the news but now looking at all of its other shows (and remembering that the one show of theirs i tried: Beyond i really did not like) i seriously doubt i will watch beyond (no pun) the first episode.

The only thing i can say to keep me interested in this is that i hope they are trying to rebrand into an "edgier" channel starting with this one.

Also i absolutely agree the magicians is very similar to misfits now that i think about it (no wonder i like the magicians so much). Good call. 

[ursula]

12 minutes ago, Doyounot said:

The only thing i can say to keep me interested in this is that i hope they are trying to rebrand into an "edgier" channel starting with this one.

That was what they were supposed to do with "Shadowhunters" when they rebranded from "ABC Family" to "Freeform". But as the more controversial aspects of the book were sanitised or quickly clarified, it's still very 'Disney for Tweens'. So I'm not having high hopes. 

[blueray]

ABC family had some good shows such as Kyle XY. Which I guess was family friendly but it was well written and acted. It was also a sci-fi show. Of course they canceled it abruptly after it's 3rd season. However, I'm not sure how current "freeform" is.

[ursula]

10 hours ago, blueray said:

ABC family had some good shows such as Kyle XY. Which I guess was family friendly but it was well written and acted. It was also a sci-fi show. Of course they canceled it abruptly after it's 3rd season. However, I'm not sure how current "freeform" is.

I don't think that family friendly and well-written/acted are mutually exclusive. It's just that Misfits distinguishes itself from all the other teens with superpowers shows by falling under the "not family friendly" genre and I don't see Freeform pulling it off. 

On 5/28/2017 at 10:04 AM, doram said:

It's a bit tricky because it's obvious that somethings are continuity flubs on the part of the writers (the ASBO-5 video, for one) & the Simon=Superhoodie was something they only figured out in series 2... but I think that even as early as 2x2, they had decided on the closed loop.

I always head-canoned that since Simon was immune to other powers, he could 'see' all the parallel timelines that Curtis had erased & figured out a way to access that tape. I also feel that the closed loop was pretty much planned form the start. You definitely hear the Overman and Iwan Rheon interviews where they talk about how Iwan essentially plays three versions of Simon - Simon as he starts the story, Future Simon who is the "end" of Simon's journey, then the Simon in-between as he grows into that person. Meaning that they always intended for Present Simon to become the Future Simon who travels back in time to die. The mystery wasn't if he'd be Future Simon, it was why? Why would he leave Alisha to basically die? And that mystery is solved in 3x8. 

[ursula]

OK, so I killed the thread? ::shame-faced::

I wonder if this adaptation will be more adventurous with the race and sexual orientations of the characters. Simon could start as what seems like the stereotypical Asian nerd trope and then have that trope subverted when he becomes Superhoodie.  Nathan makes so much sense as a bisexual character. I can also see that for Kelley, with maybe some unrequited crush on Alisha, who might be bicurious? I'd definitely make Seth a woman, Sephora. That would give us both an awesome Kelley/Sephora endgame pairing and also give an older woman the kind of mysteriously ambiguous role that women rarely get to play on US TV. 

Thoughts?

[ursula]

12 minutes ago, doram said:

Talking about racebending, I'd probably swap Nathan and Curtis as a kind of social experiment. It would be interesting to observe if fandom will still be as tolerant of Nathan's borderline sociopathy if he wasn't played by a cute white boy. Similarly, I have strongly felt that if Curtis was white, he'd be the most popular male character on the show. 

Thank you! 

And yes, it would be verrry interesting to see how Nathan and Curtis would be received by the audience if the foul-mouthed, borderline sociopathic bully was a black guy while the unsung hero who gave up a chance to recover his athletic glory, all-around pushover who can't break up with his girlfriend because he freaks out when someone cries is played by a white guy. 

Slightly off-topic, I know this is a very unpopular opinion but Simon/Nathan was my NOTP. The bully and his former victim? No, thank you. Simon/Curtis made more sense to me as a crack ship, and as a canon brotp. Curtis never much interacted one-on-one with Simon but when he did, he was generally kind and decent to him. 

[ursula]

4 minutes ago, doram said:

I think the Simon/Curtis brotp died when future!Simon stole Curtis's girl. :P

Oops. Forgot about that. Poor Curtis. And then they tried to make it better by bringing in Nikki only to kill her for real. 

[blueray]

I also wish Nikki lived. I remember thinking they went through all that to introduce her, only to kill her a few episodes later. They could have had her leave for some reason, but leave it open for her to return. Of course everyone leaves the next season anyway.

[Doyounot]

30 minutes ago, blueray said:

I also wish Nikki lived. I remember thinking they went through all that to introduce her, only to kill her a few episodes later. They could have had her leave for some reason, but leave it open for her to return. Of course everyone leaves the next season anyway.

While i was really sad that she died i thought it was great stuff that there was real consequences to what they did. Especially given all they did to introduce her making it so shocking! I remember thinking an american version would cop out and find a way to bring her back. Little did i know that there would actually be an american version years later but i hope they keep that since i thought it was some powerful stuff

[ursula]

20 hours ago, doram said:

In fairness to the producers, I think they would have kept Nikki in for series 3 but the actress had a film lined up (with the same actor that played Nathan at the time) so they had to write her out. I will however blame them for doing it very badly. Curtis basically gets over her death in the same episode, and then she's never spoken off again. Instead of killing her outright, they could have given her a critical gunshot injury from the gunman. That would have been enough to motivate the ASBO-5 to ask Seth back for their powers. Later, she recovers and decides that she'll still go ahead and travel off-country with the money she got from selling her own powers. 

I didn't know that Ruth Negga chose to leave the show. I really thought they had just killed her off because they only needed the character to make Curtis/Alisha's break-up more palatable.  

2 hours ago, blueray said:

I remember thinking they went through all that to introduce her, only to kill her a few episodes later. 

Even more than that, FSimon told Alisha that he didn't save Ollie because someone else would have died in his place, and we find out that's Nikki. So her dying 4 episodes later makes Ollie's death pointless. 

1 hour ago, Doyounot said:

While i was really sad that she died i thought it was great stuff that there was real consequences to what they did. Especially given all they did to introduce her making it so shocking! I remember thinking an american version would cop out and find a way to bring her back. Little did i know that there would actually be an american version years later but i hope they keep that since i thought it was some powerful stuff

In my experience, American shows generally don't hesitate to kill of pocs so I actually think that this is something that they would certainly do in an adaptation. 

[Doyounot]

I donno i was really shocked they did it cause i thought they set her up to be one of the main characters saving her life and bringing her into the group never in a million years could i have called that. Before game of thrones i feel like not many main characters got killed off.

Another time i can think of being shocked like that was in being human the kid getting hit by the car in season 1 (i thought that was too shocking for american tv then i find out that it happened in the british one first). Of course ive seen stuff like that happen lots of times but both were i guess the first times i experienced that (now i watch lots of shows but back then not really also game of thrones really desensitized me to main characters dying).

Speaking of game of thrones i was rooting for scum simon for so long even after doing all the scum shit he did cause it was simon lol but of course eventually he was too much of a piece of shit.

[ursula]

23 hours ago, doram said:

I think whatever they planned for Nikki got derailed big-time because of her move. Otherwise it reduces Superhoodie's decision to save her by proxy (and bring her into the group: if you remember, the gang meet Nikki because present-Simon follows an injured Superhoodie to what he thought was his (Superhoodie's) flat) to "whatever happened, happened" and him wanting to maintain the closed loop. Which might make sense but is really unsatisfying from a story-teling point of view!  

A section of fandom back then came up with the theory that Superhoodie wanted Curtis to meet Nikki and make his break-up with Alisha easier. But that made no sense, imo. For one, Alisha's feelings for Superhoodie had nothing to do with the state of her relationship with Curtis. She was interested in him (Superhoodie) from the moment she realised he could give her what Curtis couldn't - touch. And whether Curtis was already interested in another woman or not, won't have stopped Alisha's feelings from developing. And, of course, Superhoodie knew all this having already lived through this lifetime. 

 

Well for me, fSimon's explanation for his actions are enough, Closed Loop notwithstanding. If he tried to save Ollie, Nikki would have probably died. Since she didn't die in his lifetime, there's no reason for him to change that in this next one. Nikki was his friend, and Ollie wasn't. Simon has no motives for keeping Ollie alive, in place of Nikki, and possibly jeopardising the timeline because of that. People who come up with nefarious reasons for Simon doing nothing to save Ollie are probably people who didn't like that the fSimon storyline in the first place anyway. 

On 6/19/2017 at 8:30 PM, Doyounot said:

I donno i was really shocked they did it cause i thought they set her up to be one of the main characters saving her life and bringing her into the group never in a million years could i have called that. Before game of thrones i feel like not many main characters got killed off.

 

Killing off PoCs, especially black people, is so common there's a trope for it. It's so bad that it's more extraordinary when a black person doesn't die on a show than when a black person does. Game of Thrones is shocking because they were killing off white people with the same recklessness.

[ursula]

21 hours ago, doram said:

Honestly, I'm half-expecting this remake to kill off Curtis or Alisha by the end of series season one for shock effect. 

OK, that is straight up horrifying, especially since I'm not 100% convinced it can't happen. 

[Katsullivan]

No offence to whathisname that was cast in the remake to play Simon but this thread title no longer applies.

[Katsullivan]

So in bad news, they've cast Simon. Someone else should post the link or put up a picture because I can't bring myself to.

Seems like they're going to go with the Evil!Simon arc from season 1, not the Superhoodie arc which will be... interesting. I imagine that Iwan Rheon is so typecast as a villain now that they can't imagine the Simon character as anything else. Or they found a clever way to back out of delivering the show's  OTP which happens to be interracial and we all know how well that type fares on US TV...

[egc3]

On 7/14/2017 at 3:03 PM, Katsullivan said:

No offence to whathisname that was cast in the remake to play Simon but this thread title no longer applies.

Yeah, the new show must be going in a different direction. He might be a compelling USA Simon, but no one will be calling him a handsome shark. 

[Katsullivan]

19 hours ago, egc3 said:

Yeah, the new show must be going in a different direction. He might be a compelling USA Simon, but no one will be calling him a handsome shark. 

I know it seems too soon to assume but I'm guessing that they're dropping the Superhoodie arc and opting for Simon-turns-villain arc that was originally conceived for the character. 

[ursula]

On 7/14/2017 at 3:06 PM, Katsullivan said:

So in bad news, they've cast Simon. Someone else should post the link or put up a picture because I can't bring myself to.

Seems like they're going to go with the Evil!Simon arc from season 1, not the Superhoodie arc which will be... interesting. I imagine that Iwan Rheon is so typecast as a villain now that they can't imagine the Simon character as anything else. Or they found a clever way to back out of delivering the show's  OTP which happens to be interracial and we all know how well that type fares on US TV...

Iwan being a villain on another show has nothing to do with the Misfits remake. They are casting Simon, not Iwan. If they wanted to break the association, they could have cast Simon as someone with a different look - a blond, or better, someone from a different race. The Superhoodie arc and the Simon/Alisha romance was what elevated this show from a dramicomedy to something unforgettable. There's no good reason not to do it but racism has never been reasonable. 

[Katsullivan]

12 hours ago, ursula said:

Iwan being a villain on another show has nothing to do with the Misfits remake. They are casting Simon, not Iwan. If they wanted to break the association, they could have cast Simon as someone with a different look - a blond, or better, someone from a different race. The Superhoodie arc and the Simon/Alisha romance was what elevated this show from a dramicomedy to something unforgettable. There's no good reason not to do it but racism has never been reasonable. 

Well I still think it's a mix of both. They won't have been able to change the Superhoodie plot if Simon was played by another actor. But Iwan Rheon gave them an excuse they were already willing to use. 

[blueray]

Why should they keep the story the same at all. The new show should have it's own take on events, and not just remake the original exactly the same. It's weird maybe because I've never watched game of thrones, but I never saw Simon as evil (even in season 1). Maybe a loner and a creep when he left the social workers body there. But as for evil, no. He killed her in self defense and by accident.

[truthaboutluv]

I discovered this show two weeks ago on Netflix. I'm almost certain I'd heard about it before, back when it was first on, but I don't think I ever saw it. In any case, I loved, loved the first two seasons and binged through them in less than a week. I was a little bummed when I went online and saw it confirmed that the cast changed in later seasons (I figured it out when I read all the episode summaries on Netflix and noticed that the names were changed in the later seasons).

Still, I was willing to at least give Season 3 a chance since the original cast was all there except for Nathan. And while it's still fairly interesting and funny, I'm halfway through and I've confirmed that I don't care for Rudy at all, so I know I'll be skipping on the last two seasons. I thought it was lazy on the parts of the writers to make Rudy a Nathan 2.0. I think the character would have worked a lot better if they'd given him his own identity and personality. But he was like another version of Nathan with the lewd jokes, the asshole comments, etc.

They even tried to make him a dick to Simon at times like Nathan was. But thankfully they didn't do it too much because it was hard to buy that Simon would just put up with that shitty attitude like he did with Nathan when he was so removed from the guy he was when he first met Nathan and company. Not to mention that Rudy was some random and the newbie to the group dynamic he'd established with Curtis, Kelly and Alisha. 

The biggest issue with Rudy though was that he was obviously a Nathan knockoff but with none of the charm original Nathan had. And that is largely because and yes, this is a shallow reason, the actor was just not attractive at all. He also looked a lot older than the other actors. Robert Sheehan (Nathan) was adorable. For all of Nathan's dickishness and there was a lot, as much as you wanted to hate him, kid was adorable. Those curls, that face. I didn't think he was hot but he had these looks that you couldn't help just loving him. Rudy didn't have that. And so the annoying qualities Nathan had that he did, just didn't work as well and instead just made him plain annoying, period. 

eta: I did like the one probation officer that didn't die. He was hilarious. 

Edited October 6, 2017 by truthaboutluv

[ursula]

Any news about the reboot?

[AngieBee1]

Netflix has finally acquired "Misfits".  Did a rewatch of a few episodes per season.   It feels a bit dated in parts, but it's still a laugh.