Choices - Bitten and Powers

Cool, hot werewolf fascists.

Bitten is a series based on part of the 'Women of the Otherworld' novel franchise, which tells the story of the only female werewolf and all the ways in which her werewolf family of killer, fascist casualwear models exempt her from the draconian werewolf law that they enforce, without ever really talking about it. It's been sitting on the box for a while, but despite its promise of a strong, female lead and all, it's really just about another superspecialsnowflake who just wants a normal life, by which I mean that she wants to get away from the communal pack house, a massive, richly appointed mansion in upstate New York, and her super-hot genius tenured ex-fiance to live with her superhot new fiance in his vast loft in Toronto and effortlessly sliding into celebrity photographer status. I would have far more sympathy for this character if she were choosing an actual ordinary life, and this - plus still not having enough hours in the week - is basically why I'm dropping it. That and, seriously, the 'noble pack' are a bunch of idiot fascists, enforcing a law that makes no sense in a modern world and making a crushing rod for their own backs because of it.

Produced by Playstation. For reals.

Powers, on the other hand, is a super low-budget superhero show, set in a world in which superpowers are common, and Powers are celebrities with agents and social media presences. It's not an uninteresting setup, and Eddie Izzard makes a really creepy master villain, but it's hampered hard by its budget whenever it actually wants to use superpowers. This might not be a problem, but none of the characters are really likeable enough, nor the story compelling enough, to get past that. So Powers is off the list as well.

Of course, that's like ten stored episodes, which is 1 or 2 percent of the box storage, but about seven hours of my life saved.

Bitten - 'Trespass'

"Do you murder here often?"

It's on like Donkey Kong, with even Elena fully signed up to the hunt after the killer mutt claims the life of a child and dumps the body on Stonehaven ground.

Clay and Elena are sent to scope out the bars for the mutt's scent, while Jeremy and Antonio run PR with the sheriff and the rest of the pack hit up Karl Danvers, a con-man and mutt of parts, who might know who has been biting people. Karl is suspiciously available, but promises to ask around in exchange for the pack's support in claiming a territory of his own.

Meanwhile, Elena corners the mutt in a club. She tells him he is breaking the rules, but he is all 'a fig for your rules' and drops some dialogue that suggests that lycanthropy is only enabling a pre-existing murder habit. The mutt tries to muscle Elena, and when she overpowers him he begins to change, and the architectural shortcomings of the club mean that she can't contain him, resulting in a panic. One man is bitten - and later killed by Clay on the grounds that he's an addict and too weak to survive the change - before the mutt makes a break for it and gets hit by a bus. This is pure good luck, and I seriously don't know what their actual plan was if the mutt didn't just follow Elena outside like a good dog.

Damnit. I liked Pete.

Elena is all 'I want a normal life' and runs off back to Toronto, where normal Philip has invited Logan and his fiancee for dinner. All seems well, with stories straight and betrotheds unquestioning, but then Jeremy calls again. Logan and Elena have to come home again again. There has been another mutt attack, and this time Pete is dead.

'Trespass' closes out Bittens first micro arc with the death of the serial mutt, and it's... kind of unsatisfying. The pack's tactics are so haphazard; their behaviour more like the mob than a pack. I want to see more wolfishness; pacing and isolating their quarry, instinctively moving as a unit, non-verbal dominance and coordination cues. As it is they're less like a pack and more... a bunch of guys.

Bitten - 'Prodigal'

Despite the tough blonde in a library-with-cage, this is not Buffy.

Elena returns to the Danvers house at Stonehaven, and we get some flashbacks explaining that she was turned by a bite and brought to the house by Clay, her boyfriend at the time. She clearly has big feels for Clay still, but it's easy to see why she would want to get away from his nutso alpha machismo.

The pack gathers - Daniel the alpha, Clay the enforcer, Elena the tracker; Italo-American chef and his son and Pete the Roadie - and as Elena reminisces about her former role as archivist, we also learn that the Danvers' 'noble pack' are the rulers and enforcers of werewolf law, holding the 'mutts' in check. One of her jobs used to be keeping track of the mutts, but that's sort of lapsed in her absence. Given that we also learn that she's the only know female werewolf ever, the family sure feels like they think secretarial work is a woman's purview. Oddly, that wasn't why she left, but over her guilt when she killed an anthropologist who had found a werewolf and planned to start leading werewolf hunting safaris.

"So... Fanservice then?"
"Yeah, but equal opportunity."

The pack bond over combat practice and Elena gives Clay an earful for petting her in wolf form. They track a bit then change into unflattering stolen clothes, but the mutt eludes them and kills again, this time a child, which I suspect may allay some of Elena's conviction  on the no killing front.

Bitten firmly establishes its commitment to equal opportunity fanservice this episode. It also sets up a fairly unique relationship between the leads, with constant changing and running together leaving everyone in the pack entirely comfortable with each other's nakedness - except perhaps Elena with Clay's.

Bitten - 'Summons'

The Pack, cursed to look sexy and occasionally turn into bad CGI.

Elena is a werewolf, afflicted not with a predictable lunar therianthropic cycle, but with an occasional rising urge to strip off and turn into a walking reminder of how good Game of Thrones' CGI is in the grand scheme of things. She's trying to live a normal life away from other werewolves, because a heroine with magical powers who just wants a normal life is new and different, but is summoned back to the creepy pack estate when a 'mutt' kills a woman on their land as a challenge to their authoritah.

Bitten, based on the novel by Kelley Armstrong, is pretty by the numbers urban fantasy: Superspecialsnowflake heroine who just wants to be a regular girl (or at least a regular superspecialsnowflake,) check (Elena is the only known female werewolf); sexy normal boyfriend, check; sexy, bad news, douchecanoe catnip ex, check; gay bestie, check (if in the 'straight but platonic' format); call back to the magical world, big check. It's full of pretty people and pretty locations, and the occasional incomprehensible coyote attack, but it's the wolves that are the problem. Wolves are pretty key to a werewolf show, and they just look so fake.