Tom Swift

I was expecting something like a mashup between Alex Rider and Black Panther. After all we have those as examples of highly successful, modern takes on similar story lines. But what I saw was just... garbage. The kind that has been sitting in the sun for a few days. I couldn't even make it through the first episode. The CW should just kill the show right now and replace it with reruns of something - anything - else.

When I saw this new series advertised, as an old Tom Swift Jr. Book fan, I had to watch. Unfortunately, it is garbage. I disliked the level of science displayed. I disliked the plot. I disliked the actors. On top of all that the CGI was poor.

Todays television has some amazing Sci-Fi shows (The Expanse for example) that you can watch with a much more productive use of your time.

Watch something else than Tom Swift.

So I watched only to see what they would do with the venerable, intrepid adventurer and scientist. They made him into a CW TV series. Manufactured suspense, gay sex with a twist of fabulous and special effects that were hardly worth the effort. As mentioned elsewhere why use the 20th century American literary character if you are going to change LITERALLY everything about him? Making this a unique character, a person of his own time and place which he is, would have made this far more successful with its target audience, presumably habitual CW viewers. The only thing the two Tom's have in common is they are both wealthy industrialists (played down in the original character) and apparently are creative inventors although all the current Tom's accomplishments are in the past unless you count the extra special detergent he's forced to create in the first episode Can't see that as one of the old books. The "adventure " seems to be a quest for pieces of a mystery. Does this show's actual audience even know who Tom Swift is?

I thought I had found another science fiction series, bot NOPE!!!. The character Tom Swift is annoying and too extra , unlike in the book series. If the book series was popular then the producers and writers could have given a closer version of the character.

A thoroughly unlikeable hero with daddy issues, he is arrogant, selfish and has a massive chip on his shoulder. The premise of this show is interesting enough, but the execution is twelfth-grade writing-contest level. Everything is drawn to extremes with little subtlety - the villain is immediately apparent even without a twirly moustache.

The core story is hackneyed, with Flash Gordan level effects, over-earnest, immersion-breaking dialogue and a plot that bounces from serendipity to McGuffins and back to magic tech mumbo jumbo.

Clearly The CW is capable of good TV (Superman & Lois, Stargirl), but this has too many extraneous constraints, competing with the need to write a compelling story.