TV Review - The Umbrella Academy

This is an adaptation of a Dark Horse Comics series that was released in 2007. The alternative publisher typically does adaptations of franchise films or TV shows. This series is about a group or family of super-heroes. It's essentially an original idea by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá. Yet, actually, it's not an original idea. It feels so much like the super-hero stories from both Marvel and DC Comics. Way and Bá crib from both, as such to feel so derivative. In fact, they even crib from Tim Kring's Heroes, which premiered on NBC in 2006. The plot for this first season, created by Steve Blackman and developed by Jeremy Slater, feels like such a rip-off of Heroes, which itself was derivative of the Marvel and DC Comics, but at least it did so in a fresh manner. Kring's series also came in a time before the wave of super-hero films and even super-hero TV shows that have dominated the landscape for the past decade. For this  show to come along now, it can't help but feel hackneyed and too much like everything else to be fun or interesting. That would be fine if this series leaned into what it is. Unfortunately, it does what some recent series do and it downgrades the super-hero aspect as to make the viewer question why it's even called a super-hero series.

Ellen Page (Juno and Inception) stars as Vanya Hargreeves, a violinist who is preparing for a concert. She also teaches music, giving private lessons. She's also a published author. She recently wrote a book about her adopted family. She was adopted as a baby, along with six other babies. Her birth along with several other births were seemingly miraculous. The man who adopted her and her six siblings realized that all seven have special powers. Vanya was never told hers. Eventually, she comes to learn she does have special powers. Her powers simply were repressed. The series is partially about her discovering her powers and herself.

This is ironic because it's also the premise of X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) and the character of Jean Grey in that film. It's ironic because Page was in that movie as a character other than Jean Grey. However, here, Page basically gets to play Jean Grey. Vanya's powers are also similar to Jean Grey's powers. She has very strong telekinesis. This is one way of how this series is derivative of previous super-hero properties. In terms of Vanya's arc, it's also very similar to that of Peter Petrelli in Heroes.

John Magaro (Overlord and The Big Short) plays Leonard, a music student who gets close to Vanya and gets her to trust him. He realizes that she has powers before she does and he tries to get her to embrace them. However, the arc of his character is similar to that of the villain in The Incredibles (2004) or the villain in Teen Titans: The Judas Contract (2017).

Aidan Gallagher co-stars as Number Five. He doesn't have a name. He instead has a number. He's one of the seven, adopted siblings. Vanya has a name but she has a number as well. She's Number Seven. She prefers to go by her name though. Number Five doesn't have a name or if he does have a name, he prefers the number. If this were Heroes, he would be the character of Hiro Nakamura. He even has the exact same powers as Hiro. Number Five can teleport and he can time-travel. In Heroes, Hiro Nakamura travels into the future and sees the end of the world, so he travels back and warns everyone. This is exactly what Number Five does. The cause of the ending of the world is also the exact same as in Heroes.

The tone of this series even takes the same tone as Heroes. Unfortunately, this series doesn't have as many interesting or as many fun characters as Heroes. Number Five is an interesting and fun character, but he's also a bit sour throughout, which helps but also hurts the series in terms of what the other characters are doing.

Tom Hooper (Black Sails and Merlin) also co-stars as Luther aka Number One. His character is the most weird but for no good reason. If this were Teen Titans: The Judas Contract, Luther would be Beast Boy, half man and half animal. When we first see Luther as an adult, he's living on the moon, the literal moon. He lives in a station that looks like a trailer on the surface of the moon. How that station was set up and how he gets up there and back are things that we never see or learn. Why it couldn't be Antarctica or some other desolate place on Earth is also never learned. Luther being on the moon is from the comics, but having it in the series is a bizarre thing that is a bit too ridiculous at the start. Seeing his disproportionate body is also ridiculous. Seeing why it's disproportionate is also way ridiculous and not sure what it adds.

Emmy Raver-Lampman plays Allison, aka Number Three. She has the ability to mind control. David Castañeda plays Diego, aka Number Two, the vigilante or crime fighter at night and Robert Sheehan plays Klaus, aka Number Four, a drug addict who can speak to the dead. Aside from Allison, the rest of them are really inconsequential.

Mary J. Blige plays Cha-Cha and Cameron Britton plays Hazel. Cha-Cha and Hazel are assassins. They help to drive a couple of action scenes but ultimately they're inconsequential too. It's nice to see Blige kick butt, but she feels rather pointless in this narrative.

Kate Walsh (13 Reasons Why and Private Practice) plays a character that makes this series feel like Legends of Tomorrow, a super-hero TV series on the CW. There's also a bit of The Adjustment Bureau (2011) in her whole story line. I didn't care about the antics in The Adjustment Bureau and I don't care about them here. I can tolerate them in Legends of Tomorrow because that series leans into the ridiculousness of time-travel and the manipulation of reality. This series though is way too serious that when it tries to lean into that stuff, it falls flat.

Finally, there's a character named Ben Hargreeves, aka Number Six, played by Justin H. Min. He's one of the adopted siblings. He's Asian. His power seems to be that he can shape-shift into a monster. However, we only see him do it once and as a child. The reason we never see him do it again is because his character dies. We never know how or why, and because Klaus can speak and see the dead, we only see Ben in relation to Klaus. Ben is never a character onto himself. In Justice League: Dark (2017), we've seen a ghost be a super-hero, so I don't object to the concept, but this series doesn't do anything of consequence with Ben. It's a shame because the series had the opportunity to give us an interesting Asian character and that opportunity got squandered.

You'd be better off watching the first season of FOX's The Gifted than watching this.

Rated TV-MA.
Running Time: 1 hr. / 10 eps.

Available on Netflix.