Written by Laura Dengrove
The CW’s new teen drama, The 100 (based on the books by Kass Morgan), stayed true to its name as it felt like it took 100 hours to get through this dreadful apocalypse piece. It’s been done time and time again, the world seemingly ends, some end up surviving, miraculously a group of whiny teenagers end up being the saviors/victims of the story. The utter staleness of this tale alone earns some yawns, but to top that the acting, writing, and visual effects makes the show even more awful and unbearable.
The 100 tells the tale of a group of juvenile delinquents sent to a post apocalyptic earth to test its safety for other survivors of the end of the world, who are aboard a space station called the “arc.” As the teens examine the new world for the first time, they come to see that everything is not what it appears. And (of course) everything is not what it appears. Instead of being something exciting or at least semi-watchable, The 100 turns into an extremely boring hour of nothingness, bad acting, bad writing, and even worse visual effects.
To start off, let’s cover the acting. All the actors in the show are all relatively unknown, and with the looks of this show, will remain as such. To pinpoint one actor that is better than the rest is an impossible task, and to pinpoint one actor worse than the rest is also an impossible task. Simply put, they are all equally terrible. The lead of the show, Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor), just lacks and never truly shines in the role of the leader. You are left with a feeling of indifference watching her ramble on about her family and trying to convey more emotion, or emotion other than discomfort. Her complete lack of confidence in the role is undeniable and evident, but even with a stronger lead this show still couldn’t be salvaged. This is due to the horrendous writing.
The writing in the show is forgettable, predictable, and just plain bad. It is as if the writers didn’t really care about this story, as the should, or thought they were writing for the adventurous Goths/Emos the teen drama fan world has been filled with lately. The writing also adds to the staleness of the plot which has become oh-so-familiar in our world. Writing, no matter how terrible the plot is, should reflect the devotion and love of the craft a writer has in general; not the boredom and lack of interest the writers were feeling. The writers should have tried harder, and not so obviously given up on a project that they felt was doomed from the start.
Last and certainly not least, are the awful visual effects — in particular the scene in the beginning where the teens are first descending upon earth in a shuttle craft. My goodness, it is like no one even remotely tried to make this show watchable. The ship looks like something out of a D horror movie from the ’50s; all’s they needed was a piece of string moving the shuttle craft around in space and this disaster would have truly been completed.
To sum up, nothing about this show was enjoyable, nothing was redeemable, and nothing could ever make this show last more than half a season.
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I agree so why oh why am I seeing great reviews gir this show !
I quite honestly do not enjoy Eliza Taylor acting. It is very poor and very annoying to watch. Please The 100 fire her and find someone else. But keep Bellamy 🙂