Marvel fans there have been a ton of animated shows based on the X-Men and there has been at least one live action show which is very , very , very loosely based on the X-Men. However there hasn't been a live action show that's based on the X-Men which is a shame because given the advancements in CGI a how based on the X-Men could actually be done but alas one has yet to be made and so here is my review of the pilot episode to the 2017 series "The Gifted" with the episode being called "eXposed" enjoy the review.
The plot of the episode is after their kid expose themselves as mutants the Struckers have to go on the run from an agency that wants there kids with the family now being forced to join the mutant underground a group of people who want to see mutants treated as equals. I honestly feel that the plot to this episode was honestly a lot better then it really had any right to be since this is still a comic book show and so people wouldn't have blamed those involved with the making of the show if the story wasn't up to scratch but no the plot was honestly really engaging as well as being really well written and well told.
Starring in the episode is Stephen Moyer as Reed Strucker , Amy Acker as Caitlin Strucker and Sean Teale as Eclipse/Marcos Diaz. Also starring in the episode is Natalie Alyn Lind as Lauren Strucker , Percy Hynes White as Andy Strucker , Coby Bell as Jace Turner , Jamie Chung as Blink/Clarice Fong aka Clarice Ferguson , Blair Redford as Thunderbird/John Proudstar and Emma Dumont as Polaris/Lorna Dane.
The acting just like the story is honestly really freaking good which is something that I honestly wasn't expecting. I say that because alot of the actors that are in this episode aren't really known unless you've seen them in other things as such I really had no idea what kind of a performance to expect from any of these actors and so I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that the acting in the episode was actually good.
Doing the CGI for this episode and the rest of the series is CoSA VFX and Spin VFX two companies i've never heard of of which judging by what ii'm about to say is a damn shame. The CGI in this episode is shockingly alot better then what I thought it was going to be mostly because CGI in TV shows is very rarely that good but nope the CGI in this episode is honestly close to being movie quality it's that good.
Even tho this is based on the X-Men comic book it's not actually set in the world of the X-Men movies nor is it set in the same world as Legion or Logan. This show is set in it's world but given that both this show and Logan are set in a world where the X-Men no longer exist I can't help but wonder if the original plan for the show was to have it be set in the same world as Logan but due to some unknown reasons they went the over way and decided to create a new world based around this show and it's characters.
One of the things that I didn't like about the episode is that they don't really make it clear what Andy's power is. Since a few times in the episode we him being able to bend metal and then also blow up a vending machine and so it's not really made clear what his power is which I get because its the first episode and you don't want to give away all your secrets in the first episode but you have to give us something to work with instead of nothing.
Now for me the running time of any episode even more so the premier episode is a very big deal since you need to have the amount of story needed to fill that time frame and while this story does have a good amount of story it also has alot to fill a second episode. I don't get why this opening story wasn't a two part episode since there's more then enough story there to fill up both episodes as such we get slightly rushed plot points which don't have the same impact that they would have had if this was a two part story or at east I think so anyways.
Even tho this is a superhero show I personally see it more as a family drama which I honestly feel a great twist on the X-Men mythology. While the drama isn't layed on in this episode which is understandable it does start to become a bigger part of the show and I like the fact that the heart of the show isn't two teams fighting over what's right and wrong it's a family just trying to survive and stay together which is honestly something I don't think we've seen in any Marvel show live action or animated but I could be wrong.
Now even tho I just said this is more of a family drama then a superhero show it does still have some action in the episode which means that we have to talk about the action that's in the episode. Which to me is another let down just because we don't really get to see that much of people's powers in action which is honestly what alot of people would have tuned into this show to see but when we do get to see people's powers during an action scene it's honestly really freaking cool to see well in my opinion it is anyways.
Overall this was a really good episode and i'm shocked that the show only lasted two seasons since the show itself was really freaking good as well. I'm not going to lie and say that this episode or this show for that matter is perfect because i'd be lying on both accounts since this episode does have alot of problems all of which i've covered in this very review as such this episode gets an 8 out of 10 from this comic book fan.
All and I do mean all of the images that I used in this review was gathered from the official The Gifted fandom wiki page. Since I only went to one site for the images that I ended up using in this review I have no choice but to recommend that you use the official The Gifted fandom wiki page if you want really high quality images from either this episode or the show as a whole and trust me when I say there's a lot of high definition images for you to chose from if you choose to use the official The Gifted fandom wiki page.