Season Review: Supernatural Academy Season One

Overview:

Two sisters, separated at birth, grow up in radically different worlds. When the artistic outsider, Mischa, is reunited with her popular and confident twin, Jessa, the two begin a journey to save the world and truly become family.

Our Take:

Peacock has been desperate to prove itself a viable competitor in the streaming battleground, and while its done a decent job bringing in subscribers with fan-pleasing offers such as The Office: Superfan Episodes, it’s still got a long way to go to catch up to the bigger players like Netflix and Hulu. So, when a show like Supernatural Academy comes out, it’s a chance for the service to prove that it has much more to offer than repeats of old classics. Of course, even when you take a chance, it’s still possible to come up short.

Based on the book of the same name by Jaymin Eve, Supernatural Academy is centered around two sisters, one raised in the human world, the other in the magical one. The series wastes no time thrusting viewers straight into the magical world, giving us a world populated by stock magical beings blended with stock high school tropes. What do you get when you blend the two? A surprisingly formulaic setting, actually. While the idea of a school filled with supernatural creatures isn’t a novel idea, the execution had potential. Unfortunately, that potential was immediately undercut by dialogue that would have sounded outdated ten years ago.

A strength for the show is that it does recognize the new landscape of the current young generation. The characters are an incredibly diverse coterie and the relationships built up after Mischa is brought into the supernatural world are one of the more positive points of the series. However, the series seems like it sacrificed a potential slice-of-life show to go on down the “young people have to prevent the end of the world” path that is ubiquitous in young adult fiction.

Also, not a slight at the animation or character designs, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the series had a child-friendly veneer on it, which shocked me the moment I started hearing swears. I’m no prude, and yeah, the show’s rated “TV-14”, but at first glance you really wouldn’t think there’s anything to earn that kind of rating. Truthfully, aside from some mild cursing, there’s really nothing that bad in the show. Little bit of blood, though.

The cast does a pretty good job with their deliveries. Gigi Saul Guerrero and Larissa Dias portray the main sisters Mischa and Jessa respectively and do eventually develop a believable sisterly rapport. I’ll also give a special shoutout to Brian Drummond who plays the sinister Headmaster Kristov fantastically. Pretty much everybody does their best to sell their lines, but again, that has to be one of the weakest parts. While Head Writer Gillian Horvath has been in the industry for several decades, much of the dialogue for the teens seems to be channeling some serious early 00s Disney Channel energy. A lot of the barbs delivered by the Headmaster’s daughter Elda and her cronies felt straight out of Mean Girls.

All things considered though, Supernatural Academy winds up being a serviceable show I’m sure young fantasy fans will enjoy. I can’t say it will stand the test of time, especially since Peacock doesn’t even seem that interested in advertising it for today. But for tweens and teens looking for a show with a bit more edge (but not too much) and the chance to see themselves represented in animation, this show seems like it’ll fit the bill.