Review: The Order Season 1
I finished my day job last Friday, so this week has been something of an aimless wonderland. That in mind, I’ve spent a lot of time on Netflix and decided to give The Order a try. There will be spoilers in this review so consider yourself warned!
This new Netflix Original show centres on a secret magical order at a university. It stars (amongst others) Jake Manley (iZombie), Sarah Grey (DC’s Legends of Tomorrow), Max Martini (Pacific Rim, The Unit), Katherine Isabelle (Hannibal, Ginger Snaps), Jewel Staite (Firefly, Stargate: Atlantis) and Jedidiah Goodacre (The Originals, Descendants 2).
Synopsis
Out to avenge his mother’s death, a college student pledges to a secret order and lands in a war between werewolves and practitioners of dark magic.
The Order of the title is the somewhat unweidly titled Hermetic Order of the Blue Rose. These magical practitioners recruit a small number of Belgrave University students each year to join their ranks, lead by Temple Magus Vera Stone (Isabelle) and overseen by Grand Magus Edward Coventry (Martini). Jack (Manley) finagles his way into The Order and then, while dealing with having to learn black magic, he manages to get himself inducted into the second secret society on campus. The Knights of St Christopher are a sect of warrior werewolves; students chosen by magical wolf pelts to be their champions against… dark magic.
Jack has to try and figure out how to balance these two parts of his life, while also trying to get it on with his magical tutor Alyssa (Grey).
Review
The Order is part supernatural drama and part goofy college comedy and that’s where it starts to come apart. Tonally it’s all over the place, and doesn’t seem to know if it wants to be funny or serious. It tries to balance both and sadly, for the most part, fails. It is possible to do. Just look at shows like Supernatural for heaven’s sake – a show half this cast have appeared in at one time or another.
On the one hand you have the senior members of the Order. Snarky, gorgeous and sexy. Their plotlines are dark as hell but Max Martini has chemistry with his more mature screen partners that simmers off the screen.
The Knights of St Christopher and the college aged acolytes of The Order however are clueless, bumbling idiots. Their comedic antics are so totally at odds with the rest of the story that when things do get serious in the final few episodes you’re left wondering when they are going to ‘hilariously’ screw things up which is rather jarring.
There is some clever writing, particularly poking fun at the current state of college education. There’s a rather prescient episode where a mother who is a member of The Order engineers a way for her useless son to be inducted without passing any of the tests. A sort of magical take on the recent college admissions scandal whether intentional or not.
I’ve spoken to other viewers of the show on twitter who agree that a show centred on the ruling council members of The Order would have been infinitely more watchable.
Overall
It’s a watchable show, if you’re willing to give the uneven tone a pass. It’s possible to have fun, and humour in a darker show without it being so jarring. It was announced that The Order has been renewed for a second season. Given that rather heartbreaking (if a little…easy) finale I’m actually quite keen to see where it goes next. I’ll definitely give season 2 a go, hopefully they will find a better balance by then.
