A Show With Bite

I swore I wouldn’t get into another show with a supernatural premise. Then I somehow ended up watching MTV’s Teen Wolf on Netflix. And after getting caught up with everything in just three days, everything hurts.

(L to R) Tyler Posey as Scott McCall, Dylan O’Brien as Stiles
[Image from collider.com]

That’s not to say that it has terrible writing, or that the cast is terrible. It’s quite the opposite. Teen Wolf, stars Tyler Posey (Twilightfans will remember him as a fan favorite for Jacob Black) as Scott McCall, a sixteen year old boy who is bitten by a werewolf, and Dylan O’Brien as Scott’s adorable best friend Stiles. The show does what very few shows on television do; it captures the relationships between parent and child, between friends, and in dating situations pretty accurately. These relationships are exaggerated in some places, but it only adds to the appeal.

Teen Wolf is a show that combines action, romance, and humor and marries them beautifully. The painful part that I was referring to, however, is when the storylines take a turn for the worst for the characters, and viewers are forced to watch their faves be tortured. I’m not going to go too into that, but I’m just gonna say that it’s not fun.

Teen Wolf isn’t all about the action, though. The main romance in the show is between Scott and the new girl in town, Allison Argent. Things are always hot and heavy between the two of them – and I mean always – but when Scott discovers something about Allison’s family, things get tense. Fast. But like the teenagers in lust that they are, they get right back on it. And it gets a little annoying at one point.

[Image from phstars.com]

What impresses me the most about Teen Wolfis how it sometimes addresses stereotypes. Take secondary character Lydia Martin for example. She’s the most popular girl in school, dating the star lacrosse player, and she’s beautiful. Even though she seems a little ditzy, it’s revealed that she’s one of the school’s top students; She’s so brilliant that her GPA is well over a 5.0. And no one is intimidated by her being so smart. Except maybe Stiles for a bit of season one.

Season one centers on Scott finding the Alpha, or the werewolf that bit him, and season two (which has two episodes left) takes things to a whole ‘nother level.

If any of that sounds remotely interesting to you, Teen Wolf airs Monday nights on MTV at 10/9c. Episodes can be watched online at MTV.com, and season one is available for instant streaming on Netflix.