The Power: Utterly Shocking

In the present-day world, suddenly, and without any warning, young girls begin to develop the power to produce electricity from their fingertips.  At first it is just younger women, but soon older women begin to develop it as well and eventually almost every woman on the planet has this ability.  This premise is to demonstrate what could happen if the patriarchal power dynamics within most of the world were to be flipped and the women of the world were the more aggressive and dangerous gender.  What would it be like, if women didn’t need to fear the man walking behind them on the street or following them home from a club.  A world where men didn’t try to “mansplain” things to women, because of some misplaced masculine idealization. The very premise is a plot to create a world that should already exist.  A world, where women aren’t just equal, but are superior to men in many facets (which is already a truth, just not widely accepted by many patriarchal societies). But from the trailers on what to expect from the season, it looks like it might ask the question would women fall into the same trappings of lust, power, greed and aggression that men have fallen to for so many years.

I only watched the first episode, and from that it is hard to tell where exactly the story is headed.  It begins with what appears to be civil wars, not necessarily within countries, but within humanity in general and I assume the war is between genders, as men attempt to give up the false idea they should be the only ones to have power.  We only get a glimpse of this and then the episode flashes back a few months to show us how it all started.  And from there, we are taken around the world witnessing the awakening power in women from several different countries and socio-economic and racial backgrounds.  The first episode is very heavy on the exposition of the characters, but doesn’t explain too much of what the storyline is for the rest of the series, purposely leaving that vague to keep the viewer interested and wanting more.

This British-Canadian sci-fi drama is based on the 2016 novel of the same name by Naomi Alderman, who also helped develop the series and wrote the first episode.  The season will be 9 episodes long and the first three episodes premiered on March 31^st, 2023 on Amazon Prime with single new episodes releasing each week. The writing of the first episode was very good and the performances are all top notch.  The special effects so far are minimal, but the rest of the production value is high with some interesting camera shots and the use of filters which create scenes that have a muted fantasy vibe.  The music utilizes existing pop songs, which I normally don’t like, but seemed to fit pretty well for what was going on in each scene.  For the most part, the show is very well done and I think it will find a good following.  That all being said, I doubt I will continue to watch.  Why? For a couple reasons.  The first episode jumped around a lot which made it hard for me to connect to any character, you just barely begin to empathize with someone and we jump to a different country and someone else.  That is fine, because that will probably settle down as the series progresses, but more than that, I didn’t particularly like any of the characters.  I sympathized with many of them, but didn’t empathize with any of them which is a must for me to continue watching a series.  And even more of a deterrent, I am just over dystopian storylines with a lot of division and infighting between humans.  I know it makes for good drama, but I feel we are living that in real life, and I watch television to escape it.  Both of these issues are completely personal and should not deter anyone from watching and loving this series.  It just isn’t for me.