Teen Wolf: Season 1 - Review


Taking a movie like the 1985 Teen Wolf which starred the charismatic Michael J. Fox and turning it into a television adaptation was always going to be a risky move. And it being adapted by MTV may have caused many to not bother watching it at all. But I had been very impressed with MTV's first two seasons of Scream so I decided to give this show a go. And to my considerable surprise, MTV actually managed to pull it off. Now you have to wonder how they managed to accomplish such a feat. Well, it was by making this as cringe-worthy as the original source material, ensuring that the first season is so bad that its good and hoping it loops around in a full circle and it ends up being inexplicably entertaining in the process.

Teen Wolf is the very definition of a guilty pleasure as it centres around Scott McCall, an awkward teenager who is bitten by a werewolf and subsequently gains the curse that has you howling at the moon. But it isn't just the full moon that has Scott howling. It's love, lust, rage and the little problem of the Alpha who bit him hell-bent on getting Scott to join his pack.

If you are looking for something of a storyline, then there is sadly little to write about. It is something that has been done time and time again, not just with the original movie but every other drama on the television at the moment. The elements of the plotline that successfully spark the story are of interest though. The Alpha and the Argent hunting family have some interesting moments, as does the blossoming, if naïve relationships between the characters.

Unfortunately, the acting is adequate at best, with some scenes that do display some truly powerful moments, almost everything can be let down by the slightly am-dram school of acting everyone seems to be providing us with.

The leading man, Tyler Posey is good as Scott McCall and Dylan O'Brien manages to maintain the immature and crass humour throughout the entire course of the season and despite by best attempts, I did find myself smiling at some moments. This kind of genre of television depends on the comedic character like this to keep things lively. And O'Brien proves he can relive over tense moments with his comic timing. Indeed, many of the younger talents here have gone on to be bigger stars, Colton Haynes and Dylan O'Brien have gone on to do other things, with Teen Wolf having not long finished, many of the stars haven't really had the time to do anything else. But at this point, many of them need to stop overacting and when compared to the performances in something like The Vampire Diaries, the acting here is particularly uninspiring. There is a glimmer of hope though and where I'm about to move onto the second season, hopefully the actors will be given the room to get into their characters more.

I'm sure by this point, you readers might be wondering how I can criticise this series when I actually quite enjoyed it. Teen Wolf is a bit like something that doesn't taste too nice. At first you hate it, but the more you eat it, the more you come to enjoy it. Given enough time Teen Wolf will grow on you. I enjoyed the always-used doomed love trope, the werewolf action and the fact that the show handled the naff 80s transformations that caused me joy and pain in equal measure. I also grew to care about the characters, despite the iffy acting, I found myself desperate to see how the plot would develop. And the final episode and the cliff-hanger was one of the best pieces of television I've seen in a long time, so MTV must be doing something right!

Everything in me told me not to like Teen Wolf but I gradually learnt that the heart wants what it wants! And my heart eventually wanted more than a 12 episode season...

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