📺 The 100

The 100 is an interesting series. In some ways there was a lot of repetition where the same scenarios were raised again and again, but from different perspectives. This came up in regards to nightbloods and sacrificing for the greater good, as well as the place of artificial intelligence. Jason Rothenberg has explained how he actually treated each season as a new beginning:

“For me, every season was designed to be almost like a new show and a new story,” says Rothenberg, who was pitched the series by the CW and wrote the pilot at the same time Kass Morgan wrote her young adult novel, on which “The 100” is loosely based. “I approached it as a feature writer coming into television for the first time, as each of these seasons was a movie broken down into 13 or 16 parts. That’s why the show changes so drastically season to season, which is one of the things I love about it.”

As much as I enjoyed the general story and the evolution of the characters, there were some aspects of storytelling and world building that felt somewhat circumspect. In the beginning we have supposed monsters in the water and deformed beasts, yet they seem to magically disappear beyond Season 1. In the beginning Bellamy has seemingly embraced a life of debauchery, yet this seems to quickly wane. Another niggle is the ability to magically traverse between so many different biomes so quickly to me felt odd. We jump from desert to rainforest to ice all within a days driving distance or a few days hike, especially as the series went on. (This is all made somewhat absurd with the discovery of the worm holes.) Also the various chance discoveries, such as the Second Dawn bunker and that there is a second nuclear holocaust coming. Maybe the reality was not always the point or strength of the show, instead it was all about the maybes and what ifs associated with the environment, technologies, society and identity. As Richard Harmon discusses in regards to her character, Murphy.

“I definitely had worked quite a bit playing a certain type of character for years,” Harmon says. “Always bad guys. This show gave me the opportunity to expand what I can do as an actor because I never thought I would play a hero. Here I am seven years later and Murphy is trying his darnedest to do the right thing. People can change, it’s just hard.”

In the end I think Maggie Fremont captures it all best in her discussion of the conclusion of the series:

So much happened in seven seasons! And I didn’t even get into all those City of Light shenanigans or the cannibalism-in-the-bunker situation or the fate of our precious Lincoln. Just know that if you stuck with The 100 for all seven seasons, you have seen some things.