Gen V season 1 Blu-Ray boxset (blu-ray TV series review).
Having withdrawal pains from the lack of new seasons of The Boys last year, Gen V offers a look at the lives of young potential superheroes. What do they do? They go to university for people with super-powers—Godolkin University, to be precise—where they are divided into those likely to become superheroes and those destined for the entertainment industry. Basically, it’s The Boys’ version of the X-Men/New Mutants template, only in plain sight. Well, mostly.
Marie Moreau (actress Jaz Sinclair) is sent to Godolkin from an orphanage. Her key talent, shown from a young age, is turning her blood into a weapon, which she accidentally discovered during her first period when she killed her parents and scared away her younger sister. Her roommate is Emma Meyer (actress Lizze Broadway), aka Cricket (presumably based on Pinocchio’s pal), who can shrink to a small size, though she has to throw up her stomach’s contents to do so. I initially wondered why the food wouldn’t shrink with her, but it’s later revealed that she has to eat to grow, which doesn’t entirely dispute my theory.
Marie’s ambition is to be a supe, but she’s dismayed to find she’s not on the list for the right courses. She confronts Professor Rich Brinkerhoff (actor Clancy Brown), who doesn’t think she has the right stuff. Other students don’t feel the same way, especially after she helps apprehend a fleeing dangerous super-human for the police. The rest of the first episode is pretty much spoiler territory. A lot of spoilers show that although these students are super-powered, they are also vulnerable to all the youthful vices—like drugs and sex. Marie also demonstrates that she can manipulate other people’s blood and save them from serious injuries.
The other students have various super-powers, so you’ll need to keep an eye on the background as much as what’s happening in the foreground. They don’t broadcast their abilities; they just show and do.
Interestingly, the opening episode does not have any opening credits, and if you blink, you’ll miss the series title. Gen V is the name of the drug American parents knowingly give their kids to grant them super-powers. Looking at the cast names, it seems like having exotic ones is a requisite. How long before any of them become household names depends on viewing figures. The creators certainly want to expand on The Boys reality.
The grim reality behind the university front is a basement prison securing the really dangerous students, including the late Golden Boy’s brother, Sam (actor Asa Germann), whom his pals want to release, and the one Marie unknowingly had captured.
There is so much spoiler material throughout these episodes. It’s hardly surprising that many of these supes are as bad as the supes in The Boys—only with a lot more social media. In many respects, few of them actually have a social conscience and are just out for themselves, which is hardly surprising when you’re one of a kind with a particular power. They also get some things so wrong, but that’s spoiler territory. You might want to watch the end credits of the last episode for a couple of surprises.
This is all good stuff for The Boys reality, and if spin-offs like this can continue after the main series ends, then I’ll be happy. It would also be interesting to have a deeper look at the entertainment industry supe-style.
I pulled this blu-ray from China, but it’s priced similarly to season sets in the UK. It highlights the absurdity of digital channels not releasing boxsets in their home countries. I doubt people who watch the digital channels are the same as those who also have blu-ray/DVD players, so there’s less likely to be a conflict of interest. They’d also have additional sales and might even get some to sign up rather than wait for a boxset release.
GF Willmetts
July 2024
(pub: 2023 Productions, 2024. 2 blu-ray disks 8 * 50 minute episodes. Price: varies but bear in mind this isn’t bootleg but from China. ASIN: LG-M3106)
cast: Jaz Sinclair, Lizze Broadway. Maddie Phillips, London Thor, Derek Luh, Asa Germann, Chance Perdomo, Shelley Conn and so on.
