Give #The100 four other tries and you won't be sorry

Watching the first three episodes of The 100 was a lot hard for me. The teenage angst was just unchewable, especially Clarke's animosity towards Wells and then towards her mother. It just had me all about to African parent smack some senses into her. Jesox, can she just grow up! The unneeded disappearance of Wells didn't help either. Really, that was a pointless development, especially what was done to that poor little girl after. It's not on the characters but the writers. Let's not even talk about the Clarke, Finn and Raven triangle. Ship Clarke with anybody, but Finn. I even hoped for a spark when she started working with Bellamy. But, the writers seem intent on shoving Clarke and Finn supposed one true pairing down my throat. Really, at first glance, The 100 feels like a campy Battlestar Galactica effort, only with teenagers.

But, if you stick with it, you would forgive all these grievances and go look in haste for the second season as soon as the last episode of the first season ends. Seriously, it gets not that terrible by episode three, a lot better by episode five and a whole lot awesome towards the end of the first season and the rest of season two.


So, why should you stick around, besides me telling you to?

1. If you love Battlestar Galactica, you would love this. Yes, it feels like a campy cheesy Battlestar Galactica effort at first. But, you can't help but appreciate the Battlestar Galactica similarities and embrace it, because let's face it, Battlestar Galactica rocked! It even has Battlestar Galactica alums as cast members. The 100 is like the beginning of the end of Battlestar Galactica after the crew landed on Earth and found it like nothing they had envisioned.

2. Post apocalyptic world. Amen, it's real. Also, I love the idea of humans fighting against humans, rather than robots. No matter how many years, it seems humanity can never evolve past violence, all that go poof and heedless killings, all in the name of surviving. Why in God's name can we never get along? But, that would take a million thesis papers to decode. So, instead, watch humanity tear itself out for no reason.

3. The science. I know a lot of people get spiffed when sci-fi shows don't give much thought to the science part of the genre, focusing only on the fiction and vice versa. The 100 seems to understand that. It does explain how the Ark does get its gravity, how it propels itself, etc. On earth, there are malformed humans and animals. So, if you're the sort of person who gets hung up on technicalities, you may not be pulling your hairs out when you watch The 100.

4. Character development. Minus the teenage angst in the beginning, another thing that didn't sit well with me was how they all seemed to jump right into having sex. I went forth from "they're teenagers" to "I wasn't like that as a teenager" to "they're American teenagers." Aso, I couldn't buy how much Octavia switched her affection to anyone of the opposite sex who was a little nice to her. It was a mind screwery game trying to figure out who she actually would be coupled up with and which ship I was supposed to root for. Jasper is the one I am still holding out hope she ends up with. Then, you find out Octavia's background story and it makes absolute sense why she is quite flitting with her affections. But, more, you get to see her become more than that pretty girl who would be the first to take off her clothing and jump into the water, reveling the male gaze that she gets. She becomes stronger. I even prefer her strength to Clarke's. There an offbeat assumption that Clarke is this great warrior. You're supposed to be sold on that idea. But, Clarke just appears more as the girl who makes the best of the situation and fills a role she has always been expected to fill/groomed since childbirth. Without a doubt, Octavia arch is the strongest of the characters' developments. Other characters are not left out in the development scheme. You get to see them evolve into three dimensional characters, even Kane, who initially is billed as the antagonist in the series. And the Grounders, wow. From Lincoln to Anya, it is great to see the Grounders as humans, rather than only as the enemy.

5. There is many women on the show. The exciting thing about the show is that it makes no big deal about its diversity, both gender and race wise. Usually shows often capitalize on their strong female characters, louding it at every chance they get that they do have strong female characters, while at the same time undermining every bit of strength the female characters have. Shana Mlawski explains it best in her why strong female characters are bad for women article. Mlawski puts it eloquently, "Once your female characters have some depth to them, it doesn’t really matter if the male hero saves them or not." In The 100, the female characters are just characters who are female. Yes, finally, a writing team gets it. There are so many women in The 100 that there is no that one token female to mess with and offer as representation for all women.