The Gifted Review: eXposed (Season 1 Episode 1)
For quite some time, the superhero genre has had a steady foothold in the film world. Television, similarly, is increasingly getting dominated by that very same genre. New to the TV landscape, though, is the inclusion of the X-Men property in live-action.
Earlier this year, we were presented with Legion, an entirely different type of X-Men story filled with surreality and strange, mind-bending dreamscapes. It pushed against limits and what a comic book inspired television show could look and act like.
The Gifted Season 1 Episode 1 “eXposed” promises a show much more traditional in approach and structure than that of Legion, which isn’t to say that’s bad. It’s perhaps less inspired, but, no, not bad and not without value, especially in a crowded TV environment.
In a time where much of television as a whole takes itself rather seriously, fun television becomes, and is, important. The Gifted creator Matt Nix is rather adept in that sphere, as evidenced by his previous show, Burn Notice.
The question lies in whether The Gifted can be entertaining going forward.
Quite frankly, the show would be better off if the next episode had been paired with this premiere, as well. It’s hard to get a real good sense of the type of show that this will become in the coming weeks.
So much of “eXposed” is spent establishing the world and the stakes of the series that it’s not abundantly clear what the show will actually look like. This is a preamble; setting the stage for what’s to come.
What “eXposed” does demonstrate for the series is that, more than anything else, it is, first and foremost, a story about the world of the X-Men and less one of plot, character, or action. It owns itself to an interesting degree and that’s mainly the reason it’s able to get away with cheap sets and an aesthetic that is reminiscent of an early 2000’s action series.
Character could really be the way this series runs into trouble going forward because, other than the fact that we know obtrusively that the two leads — Andy (Percy Hynes White) and Lauren (Natalie Alyn Lind) — are mutants, we know virtually nothing about them other than the fact that Lauren has a boyfriend and Andy is being bullied.
They never, at any, moment transcend their mutations to enlighten us on something about their personalities or even anything about them personally.
Amy Acker, the shining bright spot of practically any other series she’s appeared in, is even relegated to little more than the concerned mother. Hopefully her character evolves into something particularly interesting as the season rolls on, but in “eXposed” she has practically nothing to do of note.
One of the things that The Gifted does particularly right is its portrayals of super powers. It would be all too easy for it to rely on a type of telekinetic power as cheap work-around, but it doesn’t do that. It shows a full range of powers, most of which have an interesting visual to boot.
Lauren’s shield power, for instance, has a look of extremely durable bubble wrap stretched out into a sphere. Blink (Jamie Chung) has a violet shaded portal ability that looks especially distinct in the muted warehouses and abandoned buildings she frequently finds herself in.
There’s a serious attempt here at displaying these mutations as something significantly defined and beautiful in a world that is so visually bland and nondescript in comparison.
The Gifted doesn’t exactly grab the viewer with “eXposed,” but it does show some intriguing promise for what might come.
What did you think of this episode of The Gifted? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
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The Gifted airs Mondays at 9/8c on FOX.
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Drew Koenig
Drew has an ongoing, borderline unhealthy obsession with pop culture, but with television in particular. When he's not aggressively trying to get out of a perpetual state of catching up, he can be found passionately defending the ending of Lost. More of his online work can be found at The Lost Cause and he also co-hosts The Lost Cause Pod.