"THE IMPERFECTS" (NETFLIX) - AS THE NAME, BUT IN ALL THE GOOD WAYS.

“A succubus, a Chupacabra and a banshee meet in a park.” Like the horrible joke their lives become, Tilda (Morgan Taylor Campbell), Juan (Iñaki Godoy) and Abbi (Rhianna Jagpal) are beset with tragedy, violence and misfortune after being experimented on by the eccentric and somewhat flamboyant Doctor Sarkov (Rhys Nicholson).

This new series on Netflix is a rollercoaster of weird science, black-humour and interesting dynamics trying to play against a lot of cliches.

When the three main characters were children Doctor Sarkov treated them for a debilitating condition they all shared, after which they were to remain on medication. Seven years later they stop receiving the medication and Sarkov mysteriously vanishes. Suddenly all three develop strange powers, that completely up-end their lives.

·         Tilda is a singer in a punk rock band. Her powers stop her from performing, not just because her super-sensitive hearing makes it impossible for her to listen to music, but whenever she sings, she emits a catastrophic scream.

·         Juan is an amateur comic book artist, who while being meek and pacifistic, also has a love of comic book heroes. His power turns him into a Chupacabra, the Mexican goat-sucker. Randomly turning into a blood-drinking monster not only horrifies him, but makes him paranoid about being around family and loved-ones.

·         Abbi is an aspiring scientist, trying to get into college. Though she is a friendly people-pleaser, her power causes her pheromones to drive people wild for her. Even to the point of fighting each other to be close to her. And if that weren’t frightening enough, Abbi has particular aversions to physical intimacy due to being asexual.

With their lives torn to pieces, they team up with one of Sarkov’s old colleagues, Dr. Sydney Burke (Italia Ricci) and begin to hunt him down to reverse their mutations.

This was such a fresh series, and a real joy to watch. The first episode starts out a little slow, but it is really just the slow rising of the rollercoaster before the story plunges full speed into the episodic mad-science ideas, and ongoing plots and conspiracies, all revolving around human experimentation. The acting is superb and with the nice inclusions of both seldom used supernatural power, monsters and ideas (like the Chupacabra); and nicely integrated character traits (like asexuality).

It does a good job of showing some diversity in the perspectives of heroes, villains and monsters and the various reasons people may or may not want strange powers.    

Unfortunately, like most new, fringe Netflix series’, it has been cancelled. Even though this means the series ends with a lot of unanswered questions, it is still a great journey and well worth your time.

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