for those whose teen years were during the YA paranormal romance trend, I feel compelled to share the news that Lauren Kate’s FALLEN has a TV adaptation that now’s available in the US*

I said "eh, let's give it a try" again with the series because my mom was like "oh, I heard this is good." And... it actually is good?? Not "masterpiece" or "pretty much flawless" good, or even "I'll probably still be obsessing over this in a few years" good, maybe, but "this feels pretty well-paced and I'm having fun and feeling emotions (and even feels), I'm actually curious about the solution to the mystery (even if I already know what I assume will be the main part of it) and care about the main cast of characters and want to find out more about the more minor ones, and... well, I just want to keep watching this to the end" good. "Do I have the wrong Fallen entirely in mind or was I just being a dick way back when" good.

I'm also glad to report that, four episodes in, the male lead is not a brooding asshole, the heroine does some very, very risky stuff but actually plans it through with her friends and allies instead of going off alone for no good reason except artificially amp up the drama, and I quite like them both. I don't particularly ship them (yet?), but their romance isn't some kind of grating insta-melodrama that just keeps building up and up to obscure anything interesting in the show, either. They're kind of cute, actually. I could do without the hints of a love triangle already sprinkled here and there, but the same "well, at least it's not being focused on ad nauseam" applies. And it's compensated by the fact I mostly like the other guy (in a kind of light "wanna put him in a petri dish and study him" way, at that) and also the male lead gets to have platonic female friends he cares about without the female lead needing to have a conniption over it. Plus, the way the characters go about expressing attraction feels a lot more understated than I would have expected. Which may be a weird thing to like in a romance series, but it just fits?? Between the horrors and all the deaths and gaslighting and "fuck it, we need a way to break out/find the truth"??

I have no idea how much was really changed from the book, or how. I do know that at certain points I happened to think "oh, god, here's Quirky Best Friend/Quirky Anxious Loser Best Friend/Unreasonably Petty Bitch 1/Unreasonably Petty Bitch 2 to really bring in that 2k YA Spirit. Can't avoid the high school dynamics even in a mental-institution/rehab-centre-as-a-front-for-some-kind-of-creepy-sect setting, I guess"... and now I really need all those girls to make it out okay, please.

Hell, I'm even interested in the creepy sect people. And not just in a "the heroes suck so bad that I'll get what I can from the villains" sense. I genuinely like that they disagree on how to run and protect their little cult and they seem to have their own motivations and inner struggles, and that the implication that they may be doing it all for A Higher Purpose doesn't make any of it seem any less fucked up and terrible and hurtful.

I'm not sure I'd wholeheartedly rec this show without a "yeah, the setting is literally a mental-institution/rehab-centre-as-a-front-for-some-kind-of-creepy-sect, and it goes into some really dark places in that context" caveat, as well as another one about how I'm not qualified to talk about how realistic or tactful its portrayals of mental illness, self-harm, anger management issues, emotional and mental abuse, etc. may be. I can say there's a sexually abusive relationship in it that I found depressingly believable in its build-up, with the actual sexual abuse itself kept mercifully off-screen. Aside from all this, there's a non-white character who tends to act as a bit of a handyman/Guy Who Finds Useful Stuff for the white leads' plans? But I feel he has potential to be more than that and I hope he gets some more depth or development.