A sci-fi mystery gets juicy and tragic in Netflix’s latest teen drama series. Following a school trip gone wrong, a group of teenagers return to their upper middle-class New England town of West Ham to find it completely deserted and with no way out.
Over the next few days, they begin to suspect that they’re not back home at all, but rather in an exact replica of their town elsewhere. With no adults or children around, they are forced to rebuild their society, which they rename New Ham, and start the local infrastructure from scratch, all the while trying to find out what happened and how to escape before they either starve to death and kill each other.
A cross between Lord Of The Flies, Lost and Gossip Girl, The Society takes the classic teen drama format many are guiltily obsessed with and seamlessly drops it in the middle of the kind of sci-fi mystery that viewers can’t stop swapping theories over. The result is the TV equivalent of pure nicotine. Whenever you decide to start watching The Society, it would be wise to make sure you have the following ten hours free.
The show likes to blur the lines, especially when it comes to its characters. There’s no such thing as heroes or villains (except perhaps for one exception for the latter) in New Ham. Everyone is struggling and dealing with the situation in their own way, and some are doing it far more graciously than others. Though many are often questionable, the characters and the relationships they build with their fellow survivors are what keep the story fresh for a full ten episodes. Many make their own problems, but it’s always a pleasure to watch the consequences play out.
Although some of the teen drama aspect is predictable, the show puts a lot of thought into the societal element, and frequently inspires trains of thought you didn’t think you’d be having in bed at 11pm on a Friday night. Each episode offers even more unanswered questions, and those partial to a fantastic cliffhanger will relish the finale, on the condition that Netflix renews the show for a second season.
