Misfits

On 12 November last year, a small group of us sat down in Meg's room in halls to watch Misfits, the new E4 programme that was showing that night. At the time I hadn't heard of it at all and even though I'm a television student, I still didn't have any great compulsion to sit and watch it. I didn't know anything about the new show, what it was about or anything so the only real reason I went to watch it with everyone else was for something to do and not to miss out on anything.

As with most things we watch in a group people are coming and going in and out so you're not always 100% concentrating on the screen. But I still quite enjoyed the first episode. For anyone who doesn't know, the basic premise of Misfits is five young people who are doing community service are caught in a freak storm which leaves them all with different superpowers. The storm also has a powerful effect on their probation worker who turns into a killing menace and ends up killing one of the community service workers and trying to kill them all. As a result they end up killing him in self defence and burying his body under a nearby fly-over. This is all in a single 45 minute episode.

So after that, due to not having freeview in halls and not being overly worried about seeing another episode I never saw the show again. Until last Sunday when I decided to download the full first series onto my iTunes for £10.99. I don't know why I suddenly decided on this purchase. I think in the debate last week, Misfits had been mentioned as an example of contemporary television that has potentially shocking content but is no longer shocking to audiences these days. So when I was reminded of the show then, I was browsing on iTunes at the weekend and saw it and decided I had to buy something with the vouchers I had got from Santa.

Over the next few days, I watched an episode a night and found myself really enjoying them. The first episode is more of a general story in terms of characters but after that each episode focuses on one particular character slightly more than the others. Although the premise is quite simple, I find the storylines really clever and gripping. We've been told we should be watching new material as this is obviously the best exemplar of what is popular now. And I've enjoyed this new programme, especially when it can loosely be described as homework. I've just finished the series there and am happy to hear that it has been commissioned for a second series.