Link: Alphas: Season One

Summary: A team of people with superpowers (“alphas”) work for the government, helping them to solve crimes committed by other people with superpowers.  Superpowers usually have some pseudo-science explanation for how they are possible.

Thoughts: A day or two after I started watching the first episodes of this series, it was cancelled after its second season, its storyline left unfinished.  Grrr!  Anyway, the first season does have its share of problems.  It can’t seem to decide what sort of show it wants to be.  Is it a sci-fi thriller?  Is it crime drama?  Is it superhero action?  Since it tries to be all three, it comes off as none, but rather a muddled mix.

Still, it had some strong points.  The characters were interesting.  They were each unique and believable, and the dialog between them was fun and natural.  You get to know them and their personalities pretty fast, which I don’t think is a very easy feat in any sort of storytelling.

It’s the overarching conflicts that made no sense to me.  Sometimes they’re tracking down a single alpha who’s misusing his or her powers for evil, sometimes they’re battling this vague underground criminal organization made up of alphas.  Meanwhile, they work for the government, so they don’t even necessarily get to make their own decisions about who and what and where and how to fight.

It would’ve been much more interesting (even if cliché) if they had been part of a secret organization themselves, away from the government, with their own set of morally questionable goals and a much more concrete set of enemies.

I’ll try to watch the second season if/when Netflix gets them on DVD, even though I’m sure the unresolved cliffhanger will annoy me.