I Watch TV: Legacies

 

Legacies

In Mystic Falls, Virginia, the Salvatore school is for the three types of supernatural beings – vampires, werewolves and witches. It’s run by former vampire hunter Alaric Saltzman, in part to make a place for his twin witch daughters Lizzie and Josie. It’s partly funded by the Mikaelson family, and a prominent pupil is Hope Mikaelson, the tribrid, a scion of powerful witch, werewolf and vampire bloodlines.

The show starts with Alaric and Hope traveling to Georgia where Rafael Waithe is having his first werewolf transformation; while rescuing him from an attempted exorcism they encounter Landon Kirby, Rafael’s foster brother, and someone who Hope has met before. They’re whisked to the school for an efficient introduction to what’s going on. Or rather, as it turns out, a re-introduction; picking this out on a whim I hadn’t realised it’s a spin-off of The Vampire Diaries (and The Originals, another spin-off).

In any case they send Landon on his way, only to discover he took a magic artefact with him. When they track him down he’s the survivor of a burned out bus which they discover was attacked by a dragon. But dragons don’t exist! Except now they do, and so do a variety of other mythical and legendary supernatural creatures, which come to the school looking for magic artefacts every episode.

It turns out that attacks by dragons and other magical creatures back in history led a werewolf, a witch, and a vampire to create Malivore, a clay-creature that not only swallowed the dangerous supernatural beings, but when it did so, it erased them from everyone’s memories. This gets used in a variety of ways. Malivore, now a pool of goop in a secret facility run by the mysterious Triad industries, is used by them to get rid of problems. But when they do that, everyone forgets them. When they emerge again, as they’re doing now, no one remembers them, though they are in the histories (most episodes having a research the monster scene). When they devise a restore memories spell, it turns out that this also restores memories that have been erased for other purposes (vampires controlling people’s minds to keep them from knowing about the school/magic etc).

They lay a few things out early on – Hope’s vampire powers haven’t manifested as she has to die first; Josie and Lizzie are Gemini witches, and at the age of 21 there’s something called the Merge where only one will survive; Malivore’s attempts to free itself involve not just releasing monsters but also creating children. One of the monsters released is the vainglorious Necromancer (“THE Necromancer”) who later becomes a recurring character, moving from villain of the week to season villain, to treacherous ally etc as these things do.

So it’s monster of the week which as always is variable, and on top of that teen soap opera drama. Who is dating whom, who has fallen out etc. Who has new powers to try and figure out. The werewolves run as a pack with an Alpha, and though that’s challenged, problematicised and occasionally subverted, it returns to the status quo. A speaking part actor leading a bunch of extras! Lizzie is canonically mentally ill, and her efforts to try and get better reveal that some of the difficulties she causes are just her personality. And this realisation leads to her sister Josie having to stop being the support – because Lizzie needs to learn to fail and have consequences. This sometimes gets awkward as it’s played for laughs in one scene, and drama in the next.

This is, in the end, a magic school monster of the week show. Each monster has it’s own odd trick or problem. Meanwhile there’s a personal or school situation to deal with. One fun bit is that they deliberately lose the touch football game against Mystic Falls High every year – not just not using their magic powers but also not even using all their mundane skills (the cover story is the Salvatore School is where rich parents send there kids who have difficulties). Inevitably at least half the main characters manage to face an evil version, or their dark side, or a doppelganger, though each time it’s via a different method it’s basically they dress more goth and are sassier with it. A nice touch is that Hope, the most dangerous of the students, is shorter and has a softer voice than the others.

Watch This: Teen supernaturals fight monsters, try to grow up
Don’t Watch This: Yet another group of magic teenagers getting in and out of trouble