The Society

There’s an irrepressible optimism to this guilty-pleasure watch.

“The Society” rarely takes shortcuts while the teens figure out what it means to build a community from the ground up, and what the dynamics of their old world mean in this new one. Much of the series’ best material comes when the characters have to confront their privilege or lack thereof. ... Few of the characters register as particularly compelling beyond their loglines; not even the aforementioned time jump, usually a storytelling device meant to shake things up, does all that much to meaningfully shift anyone’s particular arc.

A concoction of hormonal impulses and moral dilemmas, it can be daffy and even a little dumb, but it has some thematic ambition, a talented cast, eventful episodes and a core mystery that may keep you hanging on through its 10-episode first season, even when you know the answers will be less interesting than the questions.

The Society is not especially fresh and it's clumsy and clunky in a number of frustrating ways, but it's also occasionally thoughtful and perceptive and, as it progresses, it builds moral quandaries and tension well. Throw in a flawed-but-solid cast and by the end of the season, I was ready for more.

It’s easy to sneer at The Society, awash as it is in teen-series melodrama and a perpetually unsatisfying central mystery that only truly serves as a high-concept hook, but there’s something oddly seductive about the show as it comes into its own – the kind of series you only realise around its midpoint you’ve become unexpectedly invested in. Just as long as you don’t think too hard about it.

A brilliantly average, perfectly imperfect show for bouncing teens, cankered fortysomethings and nothing in between.

Is The Society a show about sort-of whiny privileged kids in an overfamiliar YA set up? Yes. Absolutely, there’s no denying that. But it’s a pretty damn good one, and the growing pains in the first season only make me excited to see where The Society will take us in the future.