The Tomorrow People

The Tomorrow People continues on its upward trajectory this week with a more or less successful episode. “Sorry for Your Loss” is far from flawless, but it demonstrates a continued prioritization of character that has served the series well. This week Russell is in the spotlight, as we get our first glimpse of his backstory. The Asian teen forced into serious musical study by domineering, strict parents is far from original (had Russell studied violin instead of piano, it may have tipped too fully into stereotyping), but Aaron Yoo for the most part makes it work, selling the emotion of Russell’s journey. He also does a surprisingly good job fake-playing the piano, a rarity on television, thanks to some effective and comparatively subtle editing. Demonstrating his burgeoning telekinesis in this way is neat and one of the more original touches this season.

Last week’s (theoretically) John-centered episode may have been somewhat of a dud, but “All Tomorrow’s Parties” thankfully takes a step in the right direction by amping up the action and introducing new elements to the serialized plot. There are still several rather painful touches to this week’s episode (every mention of Homecoming immediately draws the audience out of the action- these characters look closer to 30 than high school. Pretending otherwise is ridiculous, and not in a good way), but on the whole, it’s progress, and that’s to be applauded.

While still riddled with more holes than a strainer, this week’s episode of the CW’s The Tomorrow People is marginally better than both the previous one and the pilot. Which isn’t saying much, but at least there’s been some improvement. This week in the misadventures of Stephen and his merry band of Tomorrow People we discover Cara’s dislike for humanity, continue to watch Stephen play the most unconvincing double agent known to mankind and then screw up because of Cara’s telepathic instability, come face to face with the Tomorrow People’s wildly hypocritical disregard for human life, and are baffled at their inability to spot a trap from a mile away.

This week’s episode is as void of both plot and character development as the pilot was, and it’s evident that this show is headed nowhere fast. If you haven’t seen it yet, don’t. The episode consists of pointless exchanges of information concerning the evil schemes of Ultra, completely irrelevant arguments about Stephen’s ability to take his medication, Stephen in “danger”, confirmation that Stephen’s “the One”, and the setting up of a doomed-to-fail double agent plotline that would even exhaust 007. An exciting episode in that “bad writing for television” kind of way.

After a summer dedicated to hyping up the launch of the CW’s series The Tomorrow People, we can safely say it wasn’t really worth the wait. While not a complete waste of time, the show feels less like an original idea and more a rehashing of Marvel’s X-Men franchise, only this time released for television audiences. The premise of the show, in case you somehow missed the adverts all through the summer months, is centred around a group of genetically advanced people who only want to coexist secretly with humans, while trying to avoid imprisonment by a highly secretive agency hell-bent on their destruction.

San Diego Comic Con International 2013 kicked off on Wednesday with Preview Night. The events started up at 6pm, though people had been lined up, sometimes necessarily, sometimes inexplicably, all afternoon. For those so inclined, the exhibit floor was delightfully open and upstairs in Ballroom 20, Warner Bros. once again screened a handful of their …