Big Worlds On Small Screens: Rebecca Fisher Discusses “The 100”
~ by Rebecca Fisher
.
Introduction:
It’s funny watching trends come and go in the YA market. First the Harry Potter franchise resulted in a surplus of kids with magical powers, while Twilight wrought a seemingly endless supply of broody vampire romance fiction. We’re currently the in the midst of a dystopian influx, with books such as The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner and Divergent paving the way for shows like The 100, the latest to jump on this particular bandwagon.
But hey, if something is popular, then why not join in – especially when you have a solid premise on which to build on.
Premise:
Based on a book series by Kass Morgan, The 100 (pronounced “the hundred”) takes place ninety-seven years after a nuclear apocalypse made Planet Earth inhospitable. Since then the surviving population has lived in an orbiting space station known as the Ark, with conventional wisdom stating it’ll take four more space-locked generations before anyone can go back to Earth safely.
The Ark: humanity’s current home
But the Ark is becoming unsustainable, even with drastic measures taken to cull the population. Criminal offenders over the age of eighteen undergo swift execution in the attempt to preserve resources, but the Ark’s life-support capabilities have only three months left before they start failing.
So the Ark Council comes up with a solution: to send all their under-eighteen reprobates on a drop-ship to Earth to see if the planet is habitable. If they survive, the rest of the Ark’s population can return. If they die, it’s not like they were valuable members of society.
Story:
In the space of a few hours the one hundred teens of the title are herded onto a drop-ship and deposited on Earth. The show is clearly inspired by William Golding’s The Lord of the Flies, as power structures form immediately after the teenagers hit the ground. Some characters gravitate into the roles of leaders, others into anti-authoritarian rebellion. Some are only concerned with their newfound freedom, others have agendas that are not immediately clear.
But perhaps the show’s greatest strength is its awareness of the major flaw within its own premise: that entrusting the fate of humankind to a bunch of teenage delinquents is a really bad idea. As such, most of the injuries and fatalities that befall them can be chalked up to the impetuousness of youth. Not only do they have all the raging hormones of your average group of teenagers left unsupervised, but they’re all a little nuts from having been incarcerated in cells for so long.
There’s plenty of other obstacles to keep them busy: hostile “grounders” that strike without warning, an acidic yellow gas that kills instantly, and a variety of aggressive animals that seem to have mutated over the past hundred or so years, but the writers never lose sight of the collective immaturity of their characters, and how this poses the greatest threat to their existence.
Characters:
Among the central cast is Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor), a responsible young woman who naturally falls into a leadership role and struggles with all the moral compromises it requires of her, and her best friend Wells Jaha (Eli Goree), the Chancellor’s son who deliberately committed a crime so that he could accompany Clarke on the voyage.
Clarke and Octavia make a run for it
There’s also Bellamy Blake (Bob Morley) who – like Wells – has also tricked his way on board the drop-ship for the sake of another. In his case it’s his little sister Octavia Blake (Marie Avgeropoulos) whose very existence is a crime considering the Arc’s One Child Policy. Then there’s Finn Collins (Thomas McDonell) walking the thin line between loveable prankster and insufferable jerk, and Jasper Jordan and Monty Green (Devon Bostick and Christopher Larkin) playing the dorky nerd and the nerdy dork who seem permanently grafted to each other’s side.
But the show doesn’t neglect the adults (many of them agonized parents) that are left behind on the Arc, and all the political machinations they must negotiate when it comes to monitoring the teenagers and breaking the news of Earth’s survivability to the rest of the Ark population.
Conclusion:
After a few contrivances in the first handful of episodes, and the prerequisites of any teen drama (the inevitable love triangle is present and accounted for, and everyone looks like a supermodel), The 100 eventually emerges as a genuinely suspenseful (and addictive) show. The cast is comprised of solid actors, and the plot deals with some pretty hefty questions, such as: How far would you go to survive? Is torture ever justified? Is it responsible to put weapons in the hands of children? Would you murder one person to save hundreds more?
They’re not easy questions, and the show doesn’t provide easy answers.
.
Next Time: Salem
In 1692 the small Massachusetts town of Salem became struck with fear and paranoia over rumours of witches in their midst. What followed was a notorious witch-hunt that ended the lives of twenty people, which has since provided ample inspiration for several adaptations (most famously Arthur Miller’s The Crucible). But in 2014 the television show Salem speculated that there were real witches creating chaos in the small township, and explores what their motivations might have been.
.
About The Reviewer:
Rebecca Fisher is a graduate of the University of Canterbury with a Masters degree in English Literature, mainly, she claims, because she was able to get away with writing her thesis on C.S. Lewis and Philip Pullman. She is a reviewer for FantasyLiterature.com, a large website that specializes in fantasy and science-fiction novels, as well as posting reviews to Amazon.com and her They’re All Fictional blog.
To read Rebecca’s detailed introduction of both herself and the series, as well as preceding reviews, click on:
Big Worlds On Small Screens
Rebecca has recently won the Sir Julius Vogel Award 2015 for Best Fan Writer, for writing including Big Worlds On Small Screens.