Pilot Watch: The Tomorrow People

I like The CW Network.  I will watch almost any new scripted genre show that they air.  An exception is Beauty and the Beast, mostly because I heard a lot of bad things about it, and still do.  I also only watched one episode of Nikita, despite it being pretty much right up my alley.  Blame it on having too many other shows to watch.  Likely, Nikita is something I will marathon on Netflix once the whole series is up.  So even something as kinda silly-looking as The Tomorrow People, I'm gonna watch at least once.  Plus, the lead actor (Robbie Amell) is brother to the lead in Arrow (Stephen Amell) and hello, HOTNESS.  Yeah, I'm gonna give it a go.

One of the hardest parts about making a pilot can be the setup, the introduction to a realized world.  Usually the introduction will come via someone new to the world: a new recruit for a secret agency, for example.  If done well, this won't seem too clunky or exposition-y.  If not done well, it'll be...clunky and exposition-y.  For me, if the show can give me some characters I'm willing to watch a second episode for, I'm not too concerned with how clunky the intro is.  Not all pilots are great, not all shows start out fully realized and awesome.  The Tomorrow People handles all of this by kinda speeding through the exposition while giving the viewer some interesting characters and situations.

Basically, there are non-humans who have three special abilities: Teleportation, Telepathy, and Telekinesis.  These people, umm, mutants?  I'll call them the TPs, the Tomorrow Peeps, are hiding from an organization called Ultra, the head of which wants to capture the TPs and eliminate their powers.  Stephen (Robbie Amell) begins exhibiting some of these powers and is brought into this secret world.

This has potential.  I liked the characters, although it strains even more credulity than usual that Stephen is in high school when he looks to be about 23.  (He's actually 25)  I can live with this as long as we don't get a lot of school scenes, which I don't think we will.  Also, one of the things set up is whether or not Stephen's dad is dead or not, and judging by the fact that when said father showed up via recorded message, I yelled "Hot daddy!!", I do hope they find him.  I'll likely keep watching this one.