‘Misfits: Season 3’ DVD Review
After series two of Misfits ended it had a lot to prove, not only to itself in a way but to the audience. With the loss of Robert Sheehan as Nathan it was losing one of its best characters, to some he was most definitely the best and ending series two the way it did with almost a reboot of the whole super hero theme it left a lot of doors wide open.
After the online short episode that said goodbye to Nathan series three started off quite strong with the new addition of Rudy, the almost arrogant woman chaser who thinks himself god’s gift to all women. He’s arguably a lot like Nathan, just funny in a different way. We are introduced to him in an episode that pretty much looks at how his women chasing ways get him into trouble and how his “power” is to split into two people. This explains his arrogant side as when he separates into two his other side is the softer and more caring side who seems to like to whine a lot and worries about dying or getting random STD’s from Rudy’s sleeping around. Rudy as a character has to make an impact if he is to get into the main group of Misfits and he definitely does this in the first episode as he pulls them all back into community service which of course takes us back to the usual group ready to take on any trouble that comes their way.
In series three the stories do seem to struggle quite a bit, but in the quality of Misfits stories this still puts them above average. The Misfits with their new powers which include being a rocket scientist, being able to turn into a girl, seeing through the eyes of other people and the ability to see into the future and this puts a new slant on the way the group has to handle what comes their way. From having to fight Nazi’s due to the past being changed, dealing with new villains and even having to handle zombie cheerleaders there is enough of a variety of stories to keep people interested but it does have a feel of these stories being done before. This means that while watching the show each week I myself tended to feel that some episodes were a let-down and felt like they were taking too much from other shows that went down the same paths.
Take the Nazi episode as an example, it had the big problem that most shows fall into and that is time travel. What appears to happen when a writer gets the idea of a time travel episode is they get the idea that anything can happen. They like to think that they can kill characters off and it will be ok because they can just fix time and everything will go back as it is. This worked in the past in other shows but after seeing these other shows and seeing this theory repeated so many times I as the watcher really thought it’s about time that there was some new innovation in the time travel scenario. I say that though, then look back and think that the final Hitler scenes really did save in typical Misfits comic style.
Watching the show back on DVD as the whole series does highlight one good thing about this series though and that is just how good the show as a whole does flow. It’s very easy to sit through the two DVD’s without a break as each story merges into the next but each story is so dependant that you can still dip in whenever you want to. The quality of writing keeps you interested throughout and the new character Rudy is excellently acted by Joseph Gilgun who recently also showed how good an actor he can be in the This is England movie and resulting TV series. He infuses his character(s) with almost a childlike innocence with their co-dependency on each other as being half of the same person and although he can’t replace Nathan of course Rudy is still a welcome addition to the Misfits, especially for his tale of his father and the Cheerleaders in the zombie episode.
Although series three does feel flawed to some extent it still comes out strong and manages to connect the storylines up with what’s happened previously to the characters. It leaves you wanting more and finished at an exciting point that will have you wondering once again where they will go with it from this point on. I’d say series three was a success, it did what it had to but from this point on hopefully we can innovate a little more on the storylines and leave the well-trod paths of other shows alone for a while.
