Was in the mood for some new British television (apart from my current staples Dr. Who and Downton Abbey) so I gave E4’s show Misfits a try. The show is already three years old and is a success so far with already four seasons down.

Misfits starts off with six juvenile delinquents having to do community service. As they’re painting benches outdoors, a strange storm hits and what looks to be heavy blocks of ice starts falling from the sky. After the storm, life is no longer the same. Characters teeter-totter between doubting their sanity or realizing something about them has changed and they have strange, unwanted (at least initially) new abilities.

Misfits makes me think of Heroes, Syfy’s Alphas and the 1985 John Hughes film, The Breakfast Club. In Heroes, however, many of characters were instantly lovable (Hiro Nakamura), interesting, good looking (Jessica / Gina played by Ali Larter) and/or sympathetic (Claire Bennet, Matt Parkman). With Misfits, the initial set of main characters on the whole are troubled, short tempered, sometimes annoying, lost, cast out and freakish even before the onset of their abilities.

And unlike X-Men which has messages in there about celebrating diversity, saying it’s OK to be different and about finding people to be different with, and maybe giving a sense of hope and belonging and possibly even redemption and a home to those who feel odd, Misfits so far has chosen a path that can be funny and engaging but also quite sad and dark at the same time. As if these kids don’t have enough struggles on their plates already.

Nathan Young (Robert Shee-han) who has yet to find out his abilities at the end of the first episode finds himself locked out of his house to save the relationship of his mom (Michelle Fairley right before she became Catelyn Stark) to his step dad. He walks through the streets with no place to go, no one to take him in.

Simon Bellamy is shy, mousy, quiet, often ignored and hardly ever assertive, his ability? Invisibility.

As the seasons progress, it turns out the powers or abilities they inherited after the freak storm can be reversed, lost, and even traded. Characters depart and many new ones come in. Season 5 is due this year and it seems to continue running where Heroes stumbled.

* * *

And, what’s out this weekend? There’s Life of Pi which promises to be a brave adventure on 3D. It’s based on Yann Martel’s 2001 book which chronicles the story of a boy who loses his family in the aftermath of a shipwreck.

Next week, Manila gets ready for the much awaited Les Miserables movie with Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, Sascha Baron-Cohen and Amanda Seyfried.