Teen Wolf – 2011-2017

I was kind of reluctant to start to watch the Teen Wolf series from the 2010s. The reason had really nothing to do with the series at all. But I once saw scenes from the 1985 movie with Michal J Fox with the same name. I never saw the entire movie, just a few scenes, and thought it looked so ridiculous that I just skipped it. Add also the fact that when this movie came out I wasn’t really susceptible to a comedy about a werewolf. I was so into horror at the time that I just couldn’t stand the idea. Add also the fact that I’ve always had a hard time enjoying college movies. There are exceptions of course, but as you know there’s usually a general feel to them. Maybe it’s my own high school and college experiences that colored me? I don’t know.

But I finally came around to it. My wife just kept saying that I should watch it. She said it was nothing like the Michael J Fox movie. And it’s not. At least not as far as I can tell (since I never say the 1985 movie). She also claimed that it wasn’t really a collage series. Well. in the first season I Beg to differ with her opinion. It was very much college in my mind. I could stand it though and I see the first season more like a way to get to know the characters. It was an okay season overall but far from the best. But still necessary to “get” the rest of the series. There are a lot of relationships between the characters that will become important later.

The pack and the supernatural

The seasons differ quite a lot from each other I think. The main idea is pretty much the same. Our protagonist and his “pack” try to save as many lives as they can and are facing different supernatural beasts, events, and situations. Some of the seasons are quite messy and you really need to pay attention to understand everything. And I’m not even sure that it helps. I consider myself to be quite aware, but I was rather confused at times anyway. But not as much as I would abandon the series. Luckily there are not two seasons in a row that are confusing or below par in story quality. Some of the storytelling seems quite far-fetched though and thrown in there out of desperation.

There is a general cast that follows the series from the first episodes to the last but not all the characters are present all the time. Of course, some roles are more important than others during some parts of the storyline. I feel that some were written out in an unnecessary manner though. Some are dearly missed in some parts of the series and should have been kept. But I understand that there are things outside the series manufacturing that affect the actors as well. I guess, if you get a lucrative film role you need to focus on that and not stay in a limited series which is somehow bound to end in one way or another.

Bottom Line

All in all, I think it’s a more than okay series. I would have wanted to change parts of it to make it better in my mind but overall I think it’s pretty successful and generally, it gets better the more seasons under the bridge there are. We need an entire universe to be able to follow the characters along in a successful way. Teen Wolf as a series has ended but there are a 2023 movie that I haven’t seen yet. That will be interesting, but I have learned that a central character will not appear in it, which is a shame. Let’s just hope they’ve written a plausible explanation for it. I guess it will be an entertaining movie no less.