Trailer for the series "Lockwood & Co" (Netflix)
In recent years there is a feeling that every two months another series comes out about teenagers who fight some kind of supernatural evil and have to save the world.
Remember how it used to be socially unacceptable to admit that you like fantasy and science fiction series?
Of course not, the days when it was a niche and fringe genre are long gone.
With the age of streaming also came the budgets worthy of the stories bigger than reality, which means among other things that the effects of magical creatures, supernatural phenomena and futuristic technologies only keep getting better and better.
Now you just have to find more and more stories, and what could be simpler than finding a book that has already gained popularity, and adapting it for the small screen?
And so it turns out that many of the favorite books from the fantasy genre, specifically those that put teenagers at the center, have been turned into series in recent years.
It seems that especially on Netflix they jump on any popular title they can get their hands on.
If the original work is lucky, the creators manage to convey the complexity of the book or book series within the 8-10 episodes of the season (because you can never trust that they won't cancel it after that), but sometimes the beloved source becomes another negligible content, another title in the archive .
"Lockwood & Co" is also such an adaptation of Jonathan Stroud's popular book series.
The plot revolves around teenagers, but these days that really doesn't mean anything about the target audience.
After the success of series like "Strange Things" or "Wednesday" it is clear that there is no age for the fun of a good story about demon hunters or ghost fighters.
The creator is Joe Cornish, who, among other things, wrote and directed the very successful British film "The Neighborhood VS Aliens", and was also one of the writers of the first "Antman", so he has a lot of experience with action in the field of fantasy combined with humor. Looking for recommendations
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Robbie Stokes, Lockwood & Co. (Photo: Parisa Taghizadeh)
The story takes place in an alternative London, a few decades after the "trouble" began in the world - that's the name given to the phenomenon where ghosts suddenly started appearing everywhere and attacking everyone who encountered them.
Humanity does not know why it is suddenly at war with the spirits of the dead, but since the only ones who can sense the presence of spirits are children and teenagers, agencies have sprung up everywhere that train and activate children and girls with "sensing" abilities who fight and fight to "cleanse" haunted places, risking their lives and sanity .
Lockwood & Co. is one such agency, run by Anthony Lockwood (Cameron Champion), a young man determined to become famous as the best ghost hunter in this prestigious field.
He recruits Lucy Carlisle (the charming Ruby Stokes), a particularly talented girl who ran away from home and the agency she belonged to following a trauma, and is actually the central character of the series.
Together with the third team member, George (Ali Hadji Shemti) who has questionable social skills,
It's hard to write teenagers.
In works that put them at the center, many times the writers are tempted to give the characters sophisticated texts far beyond their years.
Not that teenagers and even young children aren't capable of deep philosophical thoughts, psychological analysis, or understanding the complexity of people, but when they talk about these things they won't use the same words that adults would choose.
They will also think about things differently, and make other choices, simply because they lack the life experience that gives all these things context.
The writing here completely falls into this trap, and the young people who inhabit it are not very believable as 16-year-olds. If they were 20 years old, it would be more forgivable for the way they talk and behave.
Even the way the romantic tension is implied feels more suited to people a little more experienced.
So how is it that at Lockwood & Co. it somehow still works?
Maybe because we are used to seeing actors and actresses in their 20s on our televisions playing characters a decade younger than them, but also because there is another dimension here, which is specifically related to the world that this series builds.
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covering up the problems of the series.
Ali Hadji Shemti, Robbie Stokes and Cameron Champion, "Lockwood & Co." (Photo: Netflix)
The way in which "Lockwood & Co" pits adults against teenagers is very interesting.
At the beginning of the first episode we see how little control Lucy had over her life until she arrived in London - her mother pretty much sells her against her will to the Ghostbusters agency, sends her at the age of 13 to fight humanity's biggest nightmares, and the salary goes directly to the mother's bank account.
We get the impression that this is how it is done in this world.
"I feel sorry for your generation," a customer tells them, who remembers what the world was like before the "problem" started.
When she was their age she was interested in boys and fooling around with friends, and she shouldn't have risked her life for humanity.
The question that arises from this new world order is, in a reality where the only ones who can save lives are children, how much power is still left in the hands of adults?
True, the adults still run the world, they make decisions and the children are powerless against them - as it has always been.
But there is a reversal of roles here, when those who are supposed to be the guards, who take care of security, become the ones who need protection and rescue.
And so it turns out that three 16-year-olds live alone in a huge house, run an agency, confront adults around them as equals, and it doesn't matter if they are police detectives or famous millionaires, and it only feels strange sometimes.
If it was a darker series, it would be possible to go even deeper into the question, who holds the power in this world?
How far will the adults go to hold this power?
What price does all this take from this young generation, whose importance in the world disappears with adulthood?
But the series does not allow itself to become gloomy and boring.
She serves horror-lite, with a kind of cynical British smile and with a feeling that there is more to discover if we get a sequel.
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Not without grace despite the gloomy world.
"Lockwood & Co." (Photo: Netflix)
Among the abundance of dark fantasy series that exist today there are some better and less.
Many of them are heavily invested and you can see in the design of the rich world where the money went, but they fall for lazy and shallow writing, despite the spectacular setting in which they take place.
Not long ago, we saw what happens when the script and direction are so weak that even a magnificent cast of actors does not help, when Netflix released the bad movie "The School for Good and Evil".
On the other hand, sometimes the budget does not allow the series to rise simply because the effects are not good enough to make the fantasy convincing.
"Lockwood & Co" was in danger of becoming such a series, its effects sometimes bordering on the embarrassing, but fortunately the successful casting and the chemistry between the actors remind the viewers how insignificant the ghosts look.
The world of "Lockwood & Co" is not spectacular, not very interesting, rather gray and cold, but it somehow works with the sad and difficult world in which it exists.
And despite that, it is not devoid of all grace and joy of life, like other series that take themselves abysmally seriously.
Here, too, the trio of main actors are responsible for holding this whole thing with their humor and personal charm, and they are the ones who turn the series from another story about teenagers-fighting-fortresses-in-a-strange-dark-gloomy-atmosphere into a rather fluid series that is great for a fun and non-committal binge .
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And if you've finished it and you're craving something similar, but largely more mature, darker and more real despite the supernatural plot, try Half-Half: The Bastard Son and the Devil Himself, also on Netflix.
Although it was canceled after one season, it is a completely charming series, about a boy who is condemned by the sorcerer's society in which he grew up because of his father's actions.
The series brings a fascinating world that is not boring for a moment, with a convincing teenage love story.
Through the story of a war within the enchanted world, it also deals with the power system between adults and young people, the press of pressure and expectations that society exerts on the youth, and asks big questions about the meaning of good and evil, who is righteous and who is evil.
All this through captivating characters, and without taking itself too seriously.
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