TV Review: The 100 Pilot Episode

The 100 premiered this past Wednesday, March 19^th on the CW at 10PM ET.

The story begins with an abandoned planet Earth that became inhabitable for humans 97 years ago. Now all these years later the Ark, the craft where the human race lives, is beginning to die. Even with population control, there is only enough supply for three more months. On the Ark, all crimes are punished. If you’re under 18, you aren’t put to death but instead imprisoned in a type of space juvenile center.

Now, as the council is running out of solutions to survive, they have picked 100 teenage prisoners to go back down to Earth and find out if it is safe to return. This is an extremely dangerous mission, and all 100 are frightened. They don’t know how much radiation may be on Earth; they haven’t a clue if there any animals either. Yet, once they land their desire to be free from rules takes over any fear they ever felt. They’re just happy to be able to do whatever they want for once in their lives!

This allows for Bellamy, the oldest delinquent on board the shuttle, to lead the revolt of the 100 as they break off their bracelet trackers from the Ark. This means that back on the Ark everyone thinks the prisoners are dying when in reality they have decided to live in a society where they can follow every one of their hearts’ desires. This has potential to turn into a teenage wasteland. But is their revolt almost justified? They’ve been deceived and lied to so many times including why they got shipped off to Earth. Why should they continue listening to the Ark when they’ve never been honest about what’s really going on up in space for so long?

The only one disagreeing with this revolt is Wells. He isn’t very liked by the rest of the prisoners since his father is Jaha, the Chancellor of the Ark who’s been responsible for many of their parents’ imprisonments or worse, deaths. Besides the Chancellor on the Ark, other important members of the Council are Kane, an officer who has his eyes set on taking Jaha’s job. This is exactly why Kane and Abby, Clarke’s mother and the authoritative chief medical officer don’t get along very much. Both know that humanity is dying but have quite different approaches to solving it.

It’s interesting to see how the adults up in space do have some very ethical decisions to make. Their ethics are quite questionable; they did kill the man who found out about the Ark’s deteriorating condition, Abby’s husband and Clarke’s father. What’s right and what’s wrong isn’t even really a factor at this point. It’s more about this question: how do you avoid killing the least amount of people?

Unfortunately, the shuttle didn’t land where it was supposed to, Mount Weather. Only Clarke Griffin realizes this and what it means is they’re 20 miles away from the food and supplies that was sent to them from the Ark. No one else really seems to care as they’re too elated about life on the ground. Clarke and four others (Quinn, Octavia, Monty and Jasper) decide to make the trip to Mount Weather on behalf of the whole group. Throughout their trip, we see Clarke and Quinn have instant chemistry, even though Clarke tries to fight it, you can feel it right through the TV screen. I like Clarke and Quinn; even in this pilot they’ve caught my attention.

Meanwhile we can already tell that Octavia is the girl that we will love to hate. She’s a free spirited girl that has a deep need for attention and will do whatever it takes to get it. Including if it means taking off her clothes and recklessly diving into a lake where she then endangers the whole group as they try to save her from a radioactive eel/serpent creature. Earth isn’t what it used to be.This includes deer with two heads, glowing in the dark flowers and forests and of course some kind of creature who walks on two legs and has toes. Is it a human or some derivation of it? Has some kind of human survived and evolved into a creature?

What we do know is that whatever it is, it’s strong enough to launch a spear across a lake aiming precisely at Jasper’s chest just as he had reached onto Mount Weather. They are not alone. I think they just realized that this mission is a lot more than they thought they would be able to handle.

I’m not writing off this series just yet. The characters are appealing. The series raises potentially interesting questions, and though the beginning of the episode may have been dragging because of informational purposes, towards the end I really did feel intrigued to find out what is hiding in the woods.

Did you watch the premiere this past Wednesday?

What are your thoughts? Comment below!

6.5/10