Extraordinary Season 1 Review: Metaphor of Powers To Describe Today’s Society | Hulu
Cast: Siobhán McSweeney, Robbie Gee, Máiréad Tyers, Sofia Oxenham, Reis Daniel, Edward Wolstenholme
Directors: Nadira Amrani, Toby MacDonald, Jennifer Sheridan
Streaming Platform: Hulu and Disney+
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3.5/5 (three and a half stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Extraordinary is the new 8-episode comedy streaming on Disney+ and Hulu that transports us to a world where everyone has powers, except the protagonist who desperately tries to get them. In Call My Agent Italia during the meetings of the agents, they often repeat that the networks are looking for a female series with a tormented protagonist “alla Fleabag”. Here, Extraordinary was probably born as a result of one of these meetings, to bring a female comedy to Disney+ and Hulu, which only tangentially borders on dramedy, with a protagonist capable of remaining impressed. All wrapped up in British undertones.
Extraordinary Season 1 Review: The Story Plot
In a world where everyone gets some sort of power by the time, they reach 18, Jen (Máiréad Tyers) is still waiting for hers at 25. Extraordinary open its narrative by introducing us to a different protagonist from the beginning. If powers are the routine, Jen is the classic exception that collides with the banalities of the case. Hers is a journey that develops from a series of obvious circumstances, weaving mainly intimate reasoning, in the most introspective sense possible. So, we get to know her during a job interview, enter her life, and get to know her family and friends.
Carrie (Sofia Oxenham) and her boyfriend Cash (Bilal Hasna) share a house in London at a time full of changes in their lives. Carrie can contact and speak with the dead while Cash can rewind small portions of time. Nothing special, of course, in such a world. Extraordinary is an extremely simple TV series as a whole, since it tells the vicissitudes of its protagonists in a choral way, presenting their lives and current objectives. The most interesting side is precisely the context in which they move. That alone makes his comedic and sentimental storytelling the least bit unpredictable. The author of the series never trivializes the powers of the characters on stage, always pulling off funny and sometimes “over the top” scenes (we are never at the level of The Boys, to mention a similar product), which keep the general attention high from episode to episode.
Jen must find herself and she will do anything to do it. She is neither perfect nor motivated, and it is precisely in her imperfections that it is easy to see each other again from the very first sequence. Her outgoing character and this “common girl” aura are nothing new, but still fun to watch, always depending on the events that happen to her and into which she is drawn. With these characters, we also find a fourth protagonist played by Luke Rollason: a shape-shifting cat who has forgotten his past until the moment we know him. His development remains one of the most interesting of the whole series, to be discovered step by step with all the twists and turns of the case.
Extraordinary Season 1 Review and Analysis
One of the most attractive and fun sides of Extraordinary, as we mentioned above, lies precisely in the world in which everything moves. The author of the series was very attentive to her choices in terms of superpowers, and characters to meet along the way. In this the series comes across as utterly unpredictable, featuring the strangest and most problematically hilarious powers imaginable. A context far from any general perfection. Having powers, also, what does it imply if everyone around you has one? Extraordinary does not want to present us with a world without problems, but rather a society that has become accustomed to such a turnaround, building expectations and a series of social stereotypes upon it. From all this, the reflection on human identity to the detriment of one’s abilities is out of the ordinary. Sometimes the potential of these people erases everything else, building social masks that are difficult to talk about, and with which the narration of this series feeds to tell something that goes far beyond the basic comedy.
From a purely structural point of view, Extraordinary is not so extraordinary. We are faced with a story of basic growth as a whole, enriched by the aforementioned findings. Jen doesn’t have powers and feels different, she hasn’t accomplished anything significant in her life, she does a foot job waiting for any opportunity to leave him, and she doesn’t have a love story of note. The premises are all here, they are all in the first few minutes of the pilot, announcing a path in which many of the things that will happen to her are quite predictable.
The originality lies, however, in the “how” they will happen (also putting the choices of the other characters in the middle), given that we are not at all in the London we all know. Love, work, and relationships with others and with the family are continually offset by social norms and by a very hilarious narrative, ready to build unexpected moments and sui generis breakthroughs. These are the beating heart of Extraordinary and the main fuel that drives us to continue in his vision.
Emma Moran looks to DC Comics and movies like Birdman, Lady Bird and They Call Me Jeeg Robot. Among the “extraordinary” there are those who would be able to transform anything, anyone (even a person) into a pdf. But becoming an adult is not learned by downloading a manual from the Internet. With protagonists are always at a crossroads like the character of Riggan ( Birdman ), who has a difficult relationship with parents like Christine ( Lady Bird ), who sometimes confuse the fantasy world with the real one as in They called me Jeeg Robot. In eight episodes, about half an hour each, the TV show tells us Jen’s life made up of ups and downs, and the protagonist’s efforts to trace her power in an out-of-the-ordinary context, through a shapeshifting, subversive show, hilarious, all played on the script that overflows with jokes and offers visual gags with unsuspected effects.
Extraordinary is therefore a brilliant showcase for two exciting new Irish talents: writer Moran who isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty and actress Máiréad Tyers. We won’t be here to reveal the characters with the most comical superpowers, nor which part is entrusted to Luke Rollason, which plays a decisive role in the maturation of the protagonist. In a world of super-fast, super-strong and prescient people, perhaps the real superpower is not to dominate time, but to accept her challenges; it is not evoking the dead but remembering the living who love us; it is not finding an amazing specialty, but it is becoming aware of one’s maturity; or just learning to be human again.
Extraordinary Season 1 Review: The Last Words
It’s not so interesting to see the umpteenth story in which the “different” woman seeks her place in a world that cares nothing about her existence, as to see her do so having to come up against some funny and crazy stunts. Also, in this story, she laughs a lot but also through gritted teeth, given that most of her comedy turns inevitably end up reflecting the character of the characters involved and their present and future existence. Extraordinary uses the metaphor of powers to describe today’s society, the social conventions in which we are entangled, and which condition our relationships with others. Full of typically British sarcasm and irony, the series makes you laugh with gusto and intelligence, finding its reason to exist.
