Sexy Teens with Dumb Names in the Post-Apocalypse, Part 1 of 100

This is a show in which sexy delinquent teens are sent to wild Earth, far away from their stupid parents in their stupid suburban space satellite. There is love, there is death, there is an older generation who just doesn’t understand. It’s the teen adventure of a lifetime. Come along with me, won’t you?

It’s 97 years after a nuclear apocalypse rendered the earth uninhabitable and the remnants the human race live aboard a giant space station called the Ark, which they presumably borrowed from the Autobots because they are giant space robots who can survive in radiation, or maybe from John Cusack at the end of 2012. Or maybe from Noah. Is the Ark even a viable allusion anymore?

In the series’ first (and, as of the end of this episode, only) nod to scientific accuracy, the station is made of giant rotating wheels, which create artificial gravity for the people living inside them. One of those people is our lead character, a pretty blonde girl named CLARK, which is a terrible name for anyone whose last name isn’t Kent so right off the bat I have high hopes for this show. She fills us in on the back story of the series via voiceover narration while drawing a mural on the floor with colored chalk. It will take another 100 years before the earth’s radiation level subsides enough for humans to live on it again, but they’re going to do it anyway in about three minutes.

Some tough-looking dudes in uniforms burst into Clark’s room and it turns out Clark has been locked up in juvie for the past year. She starts whining at them that they can’t kill her because she’s only 17, hoping they won’t notice that she’s clearly 25. Clark beats up the two burly security guards . . . somehow . . . and escapes, but then CLARK’S MOM appears and tells her that she and the other prisoners aren’t being executed, they’re being sent to Earth! Then someone injects Clark with something and she passes out.

“Pretty but vacant” is the defining characteristic of a strong female young adult protagonist in any medium.

After the title sequence, Clark and the Ark’s 99 other juvenile delinquents awaken on the spacecraft carrying them down to the planet. A pre-recorded message from the PRESIDENT OF SPACE, an African American Arkian (?) gentleman played by the guy who was fired from Grey’s Anatomy for being a homophobe, plays on a TV, telling the eponymous 100 what an important thing they’re doing for the future of their species. The president’s son, PRESIDENT JR., is sitting next to Clark. He explains that he somehow got himself arrested so he could apologize to her for turning her father in to the police and getting him executed, and he hopes she’s not still mad at him for that. Clark tells him to fuck off.

Some of the kids take off their seatbelts and start floating around in zero-g, even though everyone’s hair is hanging normally around their faces. Clark whines at them to strap back in but then the ship crashes for some reason (srsly I have no idea why) and two of them are killed instantly. So five minutes into the first episode the show’s title is already out of date. The CW should have just used the title as a running tally of how many characters are still alive and updated the title card and promotional material every week to reflect that. As far as I’m concerned The 100 is now called The 98.

After ten minutes of breakneck exposition, the show finally pauses to take a breath and introduce some more of the main cast. There is BELLAMY BLAKE, a bad-boy rebel who stowed away on the ship to reunite with his sister, OCTAVIA BLAKE, a sexy brunette who was imprisoned for violating the one-child-per-family law (as we are informed by unseen characters shouting “That’s the girl they hid under the floor!” and, twenty seconds later, “That’s Octavia Blake, the girl they found hidden under the floor!” in what may be the worst sound mixing ever to air on TV). There is FLYNN RIDER, another bad-boy rebel, who was arrested for stealing oxygen for “an illegal space walk.” He instigated the redshirts who died in the crash but he might secretly have a heart of gold . . . if he can decide which of the two leading ladies it belongs to! There is JASPER, a hipster doofus who wears goggles as a fashion accessory, and his friend, ASIAN GUY, who is good with computers, because of course he is. They were arrested for smoking weed. Also there is some guy whose name might be ERIC, who has it in for President Jr. for some reason I can’t remember but might be because Space Obama had his parents killed too. Apparently this society has a habit of killing people’s parents and then sending the kids to jail because they don’t know what else to do with them. It’s good to see the American justice system is still alive and well after the atomic holocaust.

Octavia Blake, 28-year-old teenage sexpot/girl in the floor.

Bellamy Blake starts trying to force the spaceship’s door open so they don’t suffocate or burn to death but Clark whines at him about the radiation. Bellamy is all like, “Bitch, no,” and opens the door anyway. The 98 step outside and set foot on Earth for the first time in what I would think would be kind of a solemn moment but then Octavia, overjoyed at being sent to a slow death by radiation poisoning, screams, “We’re back, bitches!” and Imagine Dragons’ “Radioactive” starts playing, because contemporary pop music is the most appropriate soundtrack for a post-apocalyptic science fiction show.

Meanwhile, back on the Ark, we are introduced to DESMOND FROM LOST, the vice president and apparently the antagonist of the show. It’s weird hearing him talk with an American accent, his voice sounds way higher and thinner than it did on Lost. Someone alerts Clark’s mom that Space Obama was shot by Bellamy Blake earlier that day and I guess they just found out. Clark’s mom immediately starts shouting this disastrous information at everyone within earshot. Jeez, lady, you think you might want to keep that one under your hat for a minute? Seriously though I hope he dies so Desmond can take over. Desmond’s friend/adviser/minion tells him, “Desmond, now that you’re president you can start killing people immediately.” One of the perks of the job, I guess. But Desmond’s like no, if we’re going to kill everyone we have to wait for Space Obama to die so we can do it legally.

“I’ll see ya in another despotic regime, brotha!”

On Earth, two characters call Clark “Princess” entirely independent of one another.

Back in space, Clark’s mom is a doctor I guess and she breaks the law by giving Space Obama too much blood, so Desmond has her arrested because in the future “all crimes are capital crimes.” KELLY HU, Desmond’s adviser?/assistant?/girlfriend?, makes an impassioned plea for her life because they are BFFs, and damn now that Desmond’s basically president you’d think he could afford some nice shirts that haven’t been gnawed at by space moths. All the kids on Earth look like they just walked out of an Abercrombie & Fitch. (I am glad though that the one resource we won’t be short on after the apocalypse is hair product.)

“You all think I’m the bad guy but I’m the only one willing to do what it takes to save us,” Desmond says with a condescending smirk, because he’s Desmond From Lost and he’s awesome. He then orders his guards to fire Clark’s mom’s ass out an airlock. Clark’s mom has been trying to devise a way to communicate with the 98 via the vital signs monitors in their wristbands. As she is dragged away to her doom, she shouts instructions at some scientist guy for how to continue the operation and tells him “Nod if you understand!” Um, why couldn’t he just answer her normally? Desmond’s standing right there watching, none of this is getting past him. The guy nods anyway though and Clark’s mom is about to get “floated” when Space Obama comes staggering down the hallway in his hospital gown and officially pardons her for wasting valuable medical resources to save a single person’s life. So he can just do that, huh? And he just let his son get arrested and shipped off to Earth anyway. Not to mention executing Clark’s dad for, as will later be revealed, doing nothing wrong. Space Obama is kind of an asshole.

On Earth, everyone looks tan and healthy despite living on a space station for a hundred years. Clark has salvaged a map from the crash and is trying to plot a course to Mount Weather, the site of the old government bunker they were supposed to land near. “Where’d you learn to do that?” Flynn Rider asks her. What, to draw a line on a map? Clark starts whining at everyone that they need to gather food and hike to the mountain so they can tell Space Obama that it’s safe to send more people down. Someone needs to tell this girl that she’s never going to get ahead giving head to the man. “Let the privileged do the hard work for a change,” suggests Bellamy Blake, founding member of Occupy Post-Apocalyptic Earth. Realizing that an unsupervised group of delinquent teenagers may not be the most altruistic people she could ask for help, Clark resolves to head off by herself.

President Jr. attempts to follow her but is confronted by that Eric guy who is about to beat the shit out of him until Flynn Rider steps in and points out that President Jr.’s leg was injured in the crash. Since murderous thugs are known for nothing if not their strong sense of honor, Eric backs off. “Hey, Space Walker,” Octavia says to Flynn. “Rescue me next.” This dialogue.

Flynn Rider, dreamboat.

Clark heads out and is joined by Flynn Rider because he wants to bang her, Octavia because she wants to bang Flynn Rider, Jasper the Hipster Doofus because he wants to bang Octavia, and Asian Guy because he’s Jasper’s wingman I guess. At least if they get lost they can just follow their trail of pheromones back to camp. After trading arrest stories, one of the dynamic duo asks, “What’d they get you for, Octavia?” Dude, were you not paying attention?

As they trek across the wilderness, they behold the majesty and wonder of this brave new world, such as a mutant two-faced deer covered in tumors. They come across a river and Octavia strips down to her underwear, prompting Jasper to exclaim his love for Earth because lmao he’s so horny. Before the others can join Octavia in the water, however, she is eaten by a giant catfish. Oh wait nvm, she survived, the catfish just smeared some red paint on her leg. Jasper pulls her out of the water and is rewarded for his heroism with a brief hug, giving Asian Guy the opening he’s been waiting for to joke, “Note to self: next time, save the girl.” Everyone laughs.

Back at the camp, President Jr. is further harassed by Eric and his crew but fends them off by making fun of a spelling error in their graffitied death threat. They are then recruited by Bellamy to serve as his enforcers. Bellamy abducts President Jr. at gunpoint and marches him out into the woods where the goon squad holds him down and pulls off his wristband while President Jr. screams like he’s being gang raped instead of just getting his bracelet stolen. Bellamy has decided to make himself the leader of this fledgling non-society and the easiest way to maintain their isolation is by getting everyone to remove their wristbands so the people on the Ark will stop receiving their vital signs and assume the radiation levels are still too high for humans to survive. To celebrate their independence, the 98 minus Clark’s party throw a big pep rally around a bonfire. I don’t know how they have the energy for this since they all belittled Clark when she suggested they look for food earlier that morning. Shouldn’t they all be busy starving to death right now?

As Clark’s gang journeys on toward Mount Weather, we get yet another scene of expository dialogue wherein Clark reveals that her father was an engineer on the Ark who discovered that they were running out of oxygen far more quickly than was generally believed. He thought the station’s citizens had a right to know the truth but Clark blabbed to President Jr., resulting in her father’s arrest and execution before he could tell anyone. Clark was then incarcerated in solitary confinement for a year but instead of losing her mind she just came out of it looking like a girl on a CW show.

They come upon another river but rather than risk attack by another mutated creature that the script calls a snake even though the animation didn’t look anything like a snake, they decide to swing across it on a vine, which is apparently just hanging down directly from the sky rather than any of the nearby trees. Flynn Rider is about to go first because he’s the daredevil, but Jasper convinces him to switch places with him so he can impress Octavia. Jasper swings across and discovers a conveniently placed sign for Mount Weather lying on the ground right where he landed. The celebration is cut short, however, when, with a cry of “DIE, HIPSTER SCUM,” a wooden spear comes hurtling out of nowhere and strikes Jasper directly in the chest, lifting him off his feet and carrying him backward through the air to collide with a tree. Finally. The only way this scene could have been better is if the spear had impaled him directly through his stupid goggles. Clark and the others take cover behind some logs and Clark announces forebodingly, “We’re not alone,” which is the least helpful thing anyone could say in this situation. Cut to title card, end of Episode 1.

It was all worth it.

I came off this episode feeling pretty high but the preview for the next episode already spoiled that Jasper is apparently, improbably, still alive and that they find E.T.’s skull so now I don’t know what to believe. Suffice it to say that, based on my expectation of CW programming, The 98 did not let me down. The premise of the show has potential, which I don’t expect to ever be fully realized, and the cast, while kind of bland, is serviceable for the subject matter and acceptably pretty. The writing is atrocious but no one expects good writing from TV, a.k.a. “the idiot box” LOL! So far my favorite character is the spear that almost killed Jasper and my second favorite is the snakefish that almost ate Octavia. I look forward to watching their arcs develop in surprising and satisfying ways over the course of the season.

I will keep watching in the hope that Desmond becomes president and has all the annoying teen characters (mainly just Jasper) lined up and shot, then the show switches gears and becomes about Desmond banging Kelly Hu in space while executing mass segments of the population at sporadic intervals. And also they get someone else to write all the dialogue. It’s a bold new direction for The CW and I for one can’t wait to tune in for more!