Get ready for the TV series you never wanted! MTV has rebooted the Teen Wolf legacy sans basketball or awesome white-haired pappa werewolf. But will this supernatural soap live up to the original? Only if you like lacrosse.
First, the whole point of creating yet another supernatural series (I assume) is to reflect some of the Twilight sex starlight, thus generating buzz from an already monstrous cult of pre-titillated teens (and those pretending to be teens, like myself). The only problem with this particular half-naked werewolf teenager is the fact that he actually looks like a teenager. Sure both Teen Wolf main character Tyler Posey and Twilight wild beast Taylor Lautner (who is more a cardboard cutout than an actual breathing, human) are the same age. But, for some reason Posey still has the doe-eyed innocence that just makes it feel dirty to fantasize about him running naked through the woods. Look at that face! He has the eyes of a newborn husky pup and the nose of Bambi. I don't want woodland thorns to rip off his shirt, exposing muscled wolf parts. I want to feed him grain I got out of a coin-operated feed dispenser while he rolls his deer lips around my extended, flat hand searching for food.
Suffice to say this was a big roadblock in my overall enjoyment of the pilot. That and the fact that the entire show is completely devoid of werewolf basketball. Which is basically teen werewolf 101. MTV's Teen Wolf plays lacrosse. Lacrosse! THIS IS NOT TEEN WEREWOLF CANON.
No werewolf basketball, no thanks, is my usual were-credo. The whole idea of swapping out werewolf basketball for the whitest of all white preppie kid sports in a suburban town is an affront to the world Michael J. Fox worked so hard to build in the original Teen Wolf. And if you're going to swap sports, at least have the decency to swap it out for something hard like boxing (circa Teen Wolf Too). Sorry lacrosse fans, there's nothing carnal about this sport. It just doesn't appeal to me and I can't imagine it would appeal to anyone else above 25 looking for a quick tween fix on a hot summer's eve. Which is probably the entire point of the thing. This show is supposed to be a direct funnel to the preppie kids of New England. And I guess if this tiny market of kids is lucrative enough for MTV to market a TV show directly to, so be it. Although I would argue that they're missing the whole point of supernatural storytelling.
And those are my two main grievances of the series, which needed to be stated before we even cracked the nut that is recapping this show. So, now that the crap has been cleared, let's proceed with an actual review.
The show starts out simple. Two kids head out to the woods to see the mangled body of a jogging victim. This is the most plausible plot of the entire show. Mostly because once they get there the two idiot kids really don't know what they want to do if they find said dead jogger body. So the two kids head out on this pointless errand of the gruesome (as so many kids jacked up on whatever is left in their parents liquor cabinet mixed with orange juice do). They get separated and the character Scott McCall bitten by a werewolf. And there you have it.
The rest of the time with Teen Wolf is spent establishing Scott's new werewolf powers (he has heightened lacrosse abilities, hearing and stuff) and reinforcing the idea that Scott likes the hot new girl. What do we know about the newbie werewolf's intended? Well she's new, and she's hot. So there's that. Oh at one point she hits a dog with her car and shows up all wet at the animal hospital that we did not know Scott worked at until that moment (which to be honest the dog seemed fine during that whole scene so way to ruin the moment dog). Scott saves the dog and now she has to marry it or something. I don't know my eyes rolled into my head from the sheer adorableness of it all until I started convulsing and vomiting kittens made out of pop tarts riding rainbows. Basically the show wanted to reiterate that Scott is a good guy. Noted.
Then we get more werewolf lacrosse, and as much as I've already stated my disgust at werewolf lacrosse, I must admit the montage of Scott kicking ass to the "bow wit da bow de bow diggy diggy" song (you know the one I'm talking about) made me smile and laugh. Oh spots montages, how I love you and your peppy songs. Now that Scott is a werewolf he's really good at lacrosse, also everyone in the school and town comes to the lacrosse team practice, OF COURSE. The coach of the lacrosse team is either my most loathed or most beloved character. He's basically the mutant spore of every coach stereotype on TV or on film. Which makes him both dreadful and kind of amazing. Watch the video below and you'll see what I'm talking about:
Here is the coach telling Scott that he's going to be a starter at practice. Watch for both ridiculous coach stereotypes AND for the cue for the entire town (who is attending THE PRACTICE) to jump up and cheer for the hero Scott. It's so bad I feel like I love it, and yet it's just not bad enough for me to True Blood love it.
Moving on, Scott discovers that he is a werewolf and when he gets horny he turns into the beast. Cue his mysterious and leather-jacketed, new secret werewolf brother Derec Hale, who is NOT the guy from 30 Rock.
At the end of the day the mysteriously leather jacketed Derec saves the new hot girl from Scott's libido. The two run away (without shirts) into the night only to discover that there are hunters of werewolves that they have to watch out for. What's the big twist? The main hunter of the werewolf killing party is new hot girl's dad. BUM BUM BUM!
That's it. It's not particularly bad, nor is it particularly good. In the end this show just felt like a cute boy running around with no shirt on and elf ears. Will I watch more? Possibly. The soundtrack is damn delightful; I can't fault them there. The show has its moments of sweetness, and part of me does want to feed the husky faced deer-boy one more time at the adorable tween petting zoo. It can have a spot on my DVR, for now, but we're not really sure how much a series like this can grow if they want to keep courting the cute lacrosse vibe. For now we remain interested, but not amazed. It's absolutely not as good as the original (which channeled the whole family shame werewolf legacy) but it could surpass Teen Wolf Too if it tried very, very hard. So, until next time Teen Wolf, don't be afraid to take some risks. Maybe join the basketball team? We're just sayin'.