The Power

While not flawless (a meandering start; too much padding), The Power is (dare I go there?) electrifying.

The result is a compelling, action-packed series that, while heavy-handed at times, is still delightfully thought-provoking to watch.

Heavy-handed though the metaphor may be, it doesn’t feel corny – it’s genuinely thrilling to see how these girls who are underestimated, forgotten and cast aside light up when they realise that they, and their actions, matter in the world.

Away from the core electrical condition being a somewhat jarringly obvious metaphor for the difficulties of puberty – Periods! Orgasms! Whatever next! – The Power is filled with thrills, and will appeal to a wide audience from teenage fans of Stranger Things to nostalgic adults fresh from bingeing Yellowjackets or The Last of Us.

A slow but eventually satisfying burn of a show, The Power’s electrifying central conceit, cracking cast and sadly still-relevant message about control of women’s bodies make it a compelling watch.

Ultimately, The Power is a well thought out, ambitiously faithful, refreshing and electrifying new offering.

It's a compelling, epic production with a strong central concept.

There are some dark corners of humanity explored over the course of the first season, anchored by strong characters in fascinating situations. But by trying to do a little too much at once, the impact is lessened. ... But there's real reason to be excited for a second season, one unburdened by the need to set up the premise, and instead can focus on all these flying sparks, ready to set the world on fire.

At least for now, the story of the show is incomplete and only hints at the deeper ideas from the original story, which still stands alone in all it managed to achieve. The first season of The Power still lays a serviceable if frequently slight foundation for it to dive into the darker elements that made the novel such a sharply sinister work.

By the back half of the first season, several characters’ stories have at last begun to intersect, in ways that promise intriguing overlaps in the future. But without a clear sense of where this show is headed, it may be too little too late.

It's possible the series eventually will rise to its lofty ambitions, with a good cast and solid source material. You can see flickers of it in scenes of Tatiana's bloody rebellion or Allie's fervent followers or Margot's violently expressed anger.

The script's brush strokes are generally broad, and the multiplex blockbuster vibe will suit some viewers more than others. The marital battles between Toni Collete's mayor Margot and her husband (John Leguizamo) lean towards cliché, and, later in the series, the wide-eyed recounting of the science behind the rise of the girls' power feels somewhat hokum. It's the ideas behind the drama that are most exciting.

The series only covers about a third of the book and would therefore seem to offer time to explore alternatives, even if ultimately they end the same way (electrical power corrupting as inevitably as any other, and all that). So far, however, the adaptation seems to be following the original’s path, which feels like a missed opportunity.

A decently executed and mostly faithful screen adaptation that undermines itself by demonstrating why a novel is the perfect format for this story.

If the broadness of its scope is intriguing, the broadness of its storytelling sometimes comes as a disappointment. Particularly in the first half of the nine-episode season, The Power too often relies on archetypes over complex characterizations, and talking points over nuanced conversations — though by the final installments, it does manage to generate enough sparks to make a theoretical second season look much more promising.

The Power falls short of expectations dramatically. Not for any lack of commitment by the cast, and neither for any shortage of real-world locations, which help to ground the events which unfold. Failure on this occasion feels more fundamental and comes down to originality. Combined with some sluggish pacing and frequently fragmented narrative choices, audiences will be hard pressed to make it beyond the third episode, which is ironic since that is when things start to get interesting.

For now, the series still feels at best like a sleeping giant, one that inspires the reasonable request to wake me when it truly starts getting somewhere.

The show clearly wants to underscore that women, given too much power, would be as bad as men. But in focusing so dogmatically on its central argument, it forgets to inscribe any of its characters with a motivating force.