ALPHAS Kicks Off Season 2 With a “Wake Up Call”

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Alphas has been a bright spot in the mutant team-up genre. Over the past few years, we have seen this type of story – usually kept to the pages of comic books – on television a couple of times (Heroes, Misfits), but Alphas really nailed the team vibe that is an essential part to the material. Heroes constantly split its characters up and pitted them against each other while Misfits was weighed down by the very nature of its adolescent cast. Both shows had strong points to them, but they couldn’t capture what a realistic team of gifted human would look like. Alphas did that effortlessly. It created believable people brought together under the common banner of needing help. Dr. Rosen helped – he’s a psychiatrist – with their issues that were keeping them reaching their full potential and had them working together to seek out and stop more dangerous Alphas.

It’s a premise I thoroughly enjoyed, even if at times the show struggled with characterization. The episodic structure of the first season – meet a new Alpha, putting the characters against a strange new ability, and figuring out how to come together and stop it – was a good approach for introducing us to the team’s dynamics. It’s a pretty basic plot structure, but it worked because of the grounded nature of the abilities people had. Nobody was running around shooting lasers out of their eyes. The main characters all had abilities that only slightly set up apart from being normal, and they found ways to work their abilities together to bring down the bad guys – or in some cases reckless youths.

Going into the Season 2 premiere, “Wake Up Call,” we have something new going on. While the plot structure form the first season is gone, we’re still in a familiar story – bringing the team back together. Rosen finds himself locked in a mental hospital eight months after broadcasting his claim of Alphas being real. The government didn’t like that so they stuck him in a padded room and defamed his name. This was definitely a possibility following Rosen’s announcement, but I was hoping the word would spread and the human race would actually become aware of the Alphas’ presence. But nope; the problem was swept under the rug and now a rebellion is growing. Rosen has been waiting for this exact thing to happen; knowing full well the government would turn to him should the bad Alphas ever decide to strike.

This is when Rosen starts bringing everyone back together, going out to find Rachel, Nina, and the rest. Rosen is without a doubt the most interesting player in the episode, but that’s only because Gary spends much of the time in a comatose state. This may not have been the direction I thought Season 2 would head, but I’m intrigued by the new terrorist cell of Alphas running around. Unfortunately, all “Wake Up Call” amounts to is a set up episode. A lot of potentially good moments are rushed through or mostly ignored in order to get to the point where the Alpha prisoners escape. But perhaps this was a necessary sacrifice in quality. With the way clear ahead, Alphas has the potential to churn out one hell of a second season. All it needs is a little more focus .