Monday, December 16, 2013

The Tomorrow People: Why is Stephen in high school?

Nine episodes in, and there’s one thing that consistently annoys me about The Tomorrow People—Stephen isn’t believable as a high school student.

Except for a handful of scenes in the first couple episodes and the basketball episode, we haven’t seen Stephen in school. He doesn’t spend much time studying or doing homework on screen, and judging by the amount of time he spends between Ultra and the Lair, he must be skipping classes. There should be consequences from missing school (grounded by his mom, phone calls from the principal), but there aren’t.

Or are we supposed to believe that Stephen’s “internship” at Ultra is taking the place of a regular high school schedule?

If high school isn’t a critical part of the story, why have the main character be high school-aged?

The writers could have made Stephen a little older. Put him in college. It might have gone like this:

Astrid and Stephen go to the local state university, but Stephen takes the semester off (or shifted to part time classes) because of his supposed mental health issues.

He realizes the voice in his head is actually Cara, the sleep walking condition he thinks he has is actually teleportation, and he doesn’t need his meds anymore. He joins the Tomorrow People and he becomes a double-agent at Ultra, just like canon.

Then the show wouldn’t have to spend much time on classroom scenes and the missing school stuff wouldn’t be a massive plot hole. Making Stephen a few years older would make him a more believable character.

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