SummaryMarcus (Benjamin Wadsworth) is recruited by an elite private academy called Kings Dominion, where the world's top crime families send their children in this series based on the Image Comics graphic novel by Rick Remender and Wes Craig.
SummaryMarcus (Benjamin Wadsworth) is recruited by an elite private academy called Kings Dominion, where the world's top crime families send their children in this series based on the Image Comics graphic novel by Rick Remender and Wes Craig.
You'll like Deadly Class from the beginning, but it takes a beat for you to actually fall in love. There is one exception to that statement. Lana Condor, who became an internet sensation last summer as Lara-Jean Covey in Netflix's To All the Boys I've Loved Before, is an immediate stand-out from this remarkable cast.
Occasionally the dialogue lays into this a bit too thickly, via character soliloquies resembling anti-corporate rants from the “Repo Man” school of screenwriting. Viewers turned off by that won’t be impressed by the cynicism winding through the opening episodes, either. But the central cast, led by Wadsworth and Condor, wins you over eventually--or, I should say, the most fleshed out characters featured within the first four episodes do this.
Deadly Class doesn't make much sustained sense, either as practical reality or pointed satire. (It is, in any case, no way to run a school.) But it has rude energy (and many bad words) and a certain conviction, and possibly what seem like bugs in its system will prove to be features instead; the creators do not seem unaware of internal inconsistencies in their creation. And many viewers won’t see a problem.
It’s a frustrating run of intoxicating highs and off-putting lows, at least in the early going. ... As it stands, uncertainly, at the starting gate, it’s poised somewhere between pass and fail.
The series’ dedication to a dark and violent world of murderous impulses--or cultivating them--is a bummer. Deadly Class asks what it takes to change the status quo, but its answer so far is not particularly revolutionary.
The series repeatedly asks its audience to rationalize murder. It weighs the value of human life in summary judgments doled out by anyone willing to act. Episodes reframe those decisions, but without definitive emphasis. At best, it’s a murky portrait of extreme ideas. At worst, it’s irresponsible.
Do not listen to the critics! This show is a breath of fresh air, in a time of the same old drama teen angst trash getting critical acclaim. Music, mood, and characters truly encapsulate the vibe of antiestablishment teens of the 80s. Don't sleep on this show, and please do not let it get canceled because of these mindless spineless critics, who spoon feed the public what they are told! Enjoy, you won't regret it!
The First Episode was "ok" like a 8/10 cause the Music and Setting seems promising.
But beginning with the second episode this series is just pure trash - the writing is just so flat and boring. I think you could completly improvise the Talking and would end up better.
The series tries to be serious, but it does not work. All problems arise out of nowhere and do not seem real. Look, just because of the sexy María Gabriela de Faría!
I think there were some good elements, but for the life of me I can't remember any. (Oh, wait, Henry Rollins FTW.)
I spent the episode alternately tense that they might kill off any given character, and then disappointed when they didn't because I realized I hated every single one of them and I want them all to die.
It is hard to decide if the young actors are incompetent or the terrible dialog is just impossible to deliver well. I suppose it could be both.
Stylistically it feels like a cross between a rip-off of Fight Club, The Warriors, and a roll in a dumpster. It's not a badly done period show so much as tired and dated. The biggest problem is the original comic is firmly rooted in the 80s and there is no way to update it without gutting it. Yet a good gutting is what is needed. I would have started with the narration which reaches David Lynch Dune levels of awful.
I will now bleach my eyeballs and take a shower.
To be fair about it, I'll still watch one more. Syfy has a proud tradition in recent years of soft rebooting new series between the pilot and episode two.