What would you do if you left on a trip with a group of friends, only to return and find that everyone in the town where you lived had disappeared? Everything looks familiar, yet nothing is the same.
This is the premise of the new Netflix original series The Society.
The show revolves around a group of teens living in a small Connecticut town. They leave on a class trip, which is unexpectedly cut short, and when they arrive home, there is no one there to meet them. As the kids soon find out, the town is completely deserted. There is no internet, no wi-fi, and no explanation about what happened.
Did all the inhabitants disappear, or were the students transported to an alternate universe that exactly mirrors their hometown?
As the teens investigate further, it appears that there is no way in or out of town. All roads dead end into wilderness. They also discover that their cell phones do work and they can call each other other, but calls made to areas outside of town don’t go through. They are effectively cut off from the rest of the world.
How will they handle it? What decisions need to be made? Who will be their leader? How long will the food last? Who has the knowledge and skills to repair things when and if they break? What about medical care? There are more questions than answers, and it doesn’t take long for disagreements to fracture the group. Factions form, people are not who they appear to be, and things take a shocking turn by the end of the second episode.
The Society has a stellar cast of young actors, led by the incredibly talented Kathryn Newton (Supernatural, Big Little Lies), Rachel Keller (Legion), and Jacques Colimon (Pretty Little Liars).
As I watched the first two episodes of The Society, I saw similarities to Lord of the Flies. The William Golding-penned novel was published in 1954 and eventually won a Pulitzer Prize. It focused on a group of boys who attempted to govern themselves after being stranded on an deserted island. Things ended disastrously for them.
Let’s hope that things turn out differently for the members of The Society. As things stand now, I’m very intrigued and cannot figure out what will happen next, which is a refreshing change from most of the television fare being offered these days.
Netflix began streaming the first season of The Society on May 10. You can watch the trailer here.