Supacell Netflix ★★★★ The premise of Supacell (Netflix, on-demand) is sold in the first few frames: an evolving new generation of young adults possess superpowers, but as the authorities track them down they are taken and kept under lock and key. Josh Tedeku as Tazer. Credit: In the opening scenes one of these super-people escapes but is cut down quickly, and her bloodied body is dragged past the cells containing her peers in a teaching moment, courtesy of their sinister jailer.
(He’s a man in a suit. Plot point: it’s always a man in a suit.) Of course, Netflix wants to sell you the notion that this is bold and intriguing new narrative ground we’re on, but in truth it’s The Tomorrow People , the 1970s British science-fiction series about teenagers with emerging superpowers, just with added gore and without Dudley Simpson’s funky electronic theme song.
Which is not to imply that it’s not brilliant. More that the genre itself isn’t fresh, even if the execution feels like it is. What is solid here, however, is the stunning cinematography (Sam Heasman and Aaron Reid) and richly textured direction from Rapman, aka Andrew Onwubolu.
In the next few episodes we meet Michael (Tosin Cole, formerly of Doctor Who ), Sabrina (Nadine Mills), Rodney (Calvin Demba, who was wonderful in Life ), Tazer (Josh Tedeku) and Andre (Eric Kofi-Abrefa), all of whom live in London’s inner-urban wilderness and are beginning to manifest what we used to quaintly call “superpowers�.