The fun : MISFITS - TV series

Misfits, 2010

Created by Howard Overman

Nationality : British

 Let’s switch to something more fun now. Misfits is a British TV series, about 5 young people, stuck in a community service programme.

One day, they’re hit by a thunderbolt. After a few weird days, they find out they now have superpowers, but also that they are not the only ones who do.

I love this series for several things. First of all, the accents, especially Kelly’s (Lauren Socha), the “chav”. Then, I love it for Nathan’s (Robert Sheehan) quotes, but there are so many, it’s better if you just look up at this video :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAFYUJNxDvE

I love it for the song of the title song by The Rapture : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVFDl8qicPY

And finally, I love it for the fact that most of the time, the characters happen to have the dumbest superpowers you could ever think of. I’m not going to spoil it by telling you Nathan’s, as it happens to be pretty cool but a mystery until the last episode of season 1.

The super powers depend on the personality of the person who has them. For example, Alisha (Antonia Thomas) used to … seduce a lot of guys : her “super power” makes anyone who touches her very, very horny. At first, she enjoys it, but then, she found out she can’t control it at all and any guy she touches basically wants to rape her.

There’s a guy who can control milk, Nathan’s stepfather who loved his dog when he was little, turns into this same dog at night, Kelly is a rocket-scientist, a girl who can make people’s hair fall out, and another girl who can make men’s penis fall off… Those obviously lead to the funniest situations.

For me, this shows how simple English humour can be and also shows the fact that it is made of the simplest ideas (simple by the fact it is totally unexpected and it gives you the feeling the screenwriters were doing drugs while writing).

But….

Now, if you seek tragedy in there, you might just find it. The characters are fun, but none of them has a happy life. Nathan has problems with his mum as he hates her new boyfriend (and she actually kicks her son out). Kelly is very lonely, as for Simon (Iwan Rheon) : we never see their families. Alisha has problems with boys, she’s pretty sad about it as she realizes she’s just a toy. And Curtis (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) was a successful runner, but was caught with drugs by the police, ending his career.

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The series continues but Nathan, the main character in the two first seasons now left, as he wants to try to succeed in films instead. His replacement was Joseph Gilgun, who played Woody in This is England (Britain…a small world *sigh*), who happens to be as crude and rude as Nathan.

But now, Alisha and Simon, “the melon fucker” (Nathan’s words, not mine) also left the series after the third season…It’s a shame. People still cry about Nathan’s departure, if characters just continue to leave like that, this series, which managed to be classic after one season, might just be having its last moments…