The 100 returns for its third season today,Thursday, January 21st, and I’m here to tell you that you should be watching it. There are a list of reasons why people have written off this show, chiefly the fact that it airs on The CW, a largely “teenager” network, but those people are wrong.
The 100 takes place 97 years after a devastating nuclear war took place on Earth, killing nearly the entire population. Now, the survivors live in an orbiting satellite called the Ark, where the life support systems are failing rapidly. A selection of 100 juvenile prisoners are deemed expendable, and are sent to the ground to see if it is livable. The cast is led by Australian actor Eliza Taylor, who plays Clarke Griffin, an independent and headstrong character who becomes one of the leaders of the 100. The 100 face many challenges, from both within and without, in their quest for survival.
While the premise is an interesting one, the core of the show is its moral center. One of the biggest conflicts the characters constantly struggle with is the difference between “who we are and who we need to be to survive.” The characters, most of which are under 18, are forced to make difficult decisions way beyond our scope of the capacity of 18-year-olds. From a technical standpoint, this is remarkable because the writers put these characters in impossible situations without giving them an easy way out. Too often, television characters are saved by a deus ex machina event that “saves” them from making a difficult choice, or completing a difficult action. The 100 doesn’t do this. If a situation arises that could cause a massive impact on the characters’ lives, it’s safe to say that that situation will come to fruition. There will not be an easy way out. Additionally, the characters will feel the consequences of those actions, both physically and emotionally. These consequences are explored in terms of guilt over one’s own survival.
This show is also one of the most diverse out there. Just in terms of the main cast, representation includes disabled, lesbian, bisexual, black, Latina, Korean, and biracial characters. These characters are all given the opportunity to be deeply explored and discovered. None of the characters are tokens or stereotypes, and they are all extremely complex, as people are. The characters also grow immensely from who they were in the pilot. They remain true to their core beliefs and character traits, but discover new things about themselves as they navigate the new world of the ground.
A lot of fans of the show (and even the creators) admit that the show takes a few episodes to really find it’s footing. A major event takes place in the fifth episode of the first season that, for me, was the major hook to keep me watching. I was definitely interested in the show enough to get to that fifth episode, but that was the one that made me realize how groundbreaking it really was. After that major event, the conflicts and problems just keep getting bigger and bigger, while still keeping the characters’ emotional journey central. The second season expanded the world of the characters in a major way, and judging by trailers and teases from cast and crew, the third season will expand the world even more. The show will hopefully continue to explore the moral ramifications of survival and what it takes to be a “good” person in a world like that.
The first two seasons of The 100 are currently streaming on Netflix. You have no excuse.
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