One Line Review: Bad characters, Less charming, boring story with no grip.
Youtube Trailer The A List Season 1
Starring: Jacob Dudman, Lisa Ambalav
Director: Max Lohan
Release Date: 25 October 2018
Introduction
Netflix has had some great success with mystery series, such as Stranger Things and Dark. The same applies to the teenage area, which was mainly covered by RomComs. Of course, the streaming service didn’t miss the chance to include The A List in its program, a BBC production for which the international rights were secured. Because here both are combined: typical teenage sensitivities, which often revolve around love and recognition. And loads of secrets.
Plot Analysis
“The A List” begins as a typical teen drama when the trip to an island summer camp begins with the worst cat war. Even later, the protagonists behave childishly to stupid, which regularly pulls on the nerves. It gets more interesting when the whole thing turns into a mystery thriller. He’s just as unintelligent, procrastinates the story cheaply, but keeps you happy with a mixture of curiosity and fun with trash.
It gets more interesting when the mentioned mystery elements are added. That Amber is not only extremely nasty but also not completely normal, which becomes clear relatively quickly. The other people are too quick to become a slave to her for that. Especially since The A List also scattered various hints that regardless of the beautiful bitch, something is very rotten on the island. But it takes a relatively long time until the cat is out of the bag, where it got its strength from, and what exactly it intends to do with it.
And now all over again!
Basically, of course, that’s okay, the tendency to procrastinate and delay is no longer uncommon in series these days. The A List strains your patience in a somewhat audacious way because it is not just treading on the spot here. Rather, Dan Berlinka and Nina Metivier, who developed the story and were largely responsible for the scripts, couldn’t think of anything other than to turn the duel into a constant back and forth. At regular intervals Amber converts someone who later comes to their senses, only to end up with Amber again. This is not only frustrating for those affected, as a viewer you also have the feeling that you are simply wasting your time here.
Conclusion
Whereby the way in which everyone takes themselves incredibly important here, even when things get totally stupid again, also has its charm somewhere. A very cheap camp trash charm, but still. It’s less exciting then, you don’t take the characters seriously enough, you don’t even like them. But the curiosity remains as to how they will manage to screw everything up again next. And a certain entertainment factor. Especially since The A List has the advantage that the 13 episodes are only 25 minutes long, so you can get through it relatively quickly. That doesn’t make the series any better, but it does make the various shortcomings more bearable.
