Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Imperfects’ on Netflix, About Three Mutant Teens With Superpowers They Didn’t Ask For

The Imperfects takes an X-Men-like concept and gives it a 2022 makeover. In the new Netflix series, three young adults who underwent genetic testing in their childhoods start to experience weird powers and side effects. When the scientist who administered the tests skips town, they go on the run looking for him to try and restore their lives back to normal, but things get mysterious and dangerous the harder they look.

THE IMPERFECTS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A scalpel and rotating saw cut into the chest cavity of a dead man on a table. Three people, Abbi, Tilda, and Juan, look on as the scientist cutting into him, Dr. Burke, says, “You don’t see that every day,” while peering into his bloody trunk. The show cuts away and the word “Before” shows up on screen. Soon enough, we’ll figure out who the dead guy is and why everyone is hovered around him.

The Gist: Three Seattle-area college students, Abbi (Rhianna Jagpal), Tilda (Morgan Taylor Campbell), and Juan (Iñaki Godoy), start to experience weird side effects when their prescription medication starts running out. Abbi, a scientist desperate to be accepted into Oxford, releases pheromones that make her irresistible to anyone around her (in a dangerous way, picture a mob of zombies desperate to eat her brains). Tilda has super hearing and is able to scream so loud that it shatters glass. And Juan turns into a vicious beast at night, blacking out and killing small animals, leading him to be known as the Terror of Tacoma. This leads Tilda to realize their powers are taken from supernatural or mythical creatures: Tilda is a banshee, Abbi a succubus, and Juan is a chupacabra.

The three were all part of a genetic experiment seven years earlier, led by Dr. Alex Sarkov (Rhys Nicholson), a quirky scientist who has been providing them with their meds to keep any strange side effects of his experiments at bay, but the meds have run out and after they have a brief meeting with a dodgy Sarkov, the scientist mysteriously disappears. The trio of mutants, all desperate to quell their life-interrupting powers (at this point, aside from Juan murdering small animals, the womens’ powers are just more of a pain in the ass than anything), enter Sarkov’s office and find him gone, but his old partner, Dr. Sydney Burke (Italia Ricci) is there to explain that his lab has been formally shut down for yeaaaars. Burke presents the three with some synthetic stem cells that might help cure them, but that’s when Doug, the dead guy on the operating table from the opening scene, busts into the office and tries to steal them. Juan goes full chupacabra and kills Doug, and when Dr. Burke autopsies Doug’s body, she realizes he has a third lung and an enlarged heart and OH MY GOD HE’S A MUTANT TOO! (One of us! One of us!)

That’s when Doug reanimates and we realize that his superpower is that he’s immortal, and Sarkov was not just helping these teens suppress their side effects, he was doing some serious experimentation on other people, too.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Imperfects feels like a mashup of X-Men, Fringe, and Riverdale, in that it blends the plot devices of genetically modified mutant youths, supernatural beings, and dark, sometimes dangerous teen angst into one show.

Our Take: I have to say that first episode of The Imperfects started and ended strong. The bookended scenes of a dead guy on an embalming table made for a cool framing device and helps for viewers to understand who each of the characters are and why they’re all bound together now. Everything in the middle though? It was just kind of meh.

Abbi gets chased around by college advisers and fellow students who find her pheromones intoxicating, and Tilda gets kicked out of her band because her super-hearing makes it hard for her to sing along with them. Only mild-mannered Juan, who morphs at night and goes around killing animals, coming home in blood-soaked clothes, is dealing with scarier repercussions of his actions. And once we actually learn why everyone is suddenly turning into mutants… the explanation that Dr. Burke gives for why Sarkov’s experiments have gone awry is just not that interesting. The stakes don’t feel high enough.

The Imperfects has the makings of a good show. The bones are there, but there are just so many small details and plot points that, perhaps with some tweaking, could make it much more compelling than it is.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: That dead guy whose body was being opened up at the beginning of the episode? Well, he’s still on the table at the end of the episode. Tilda, with her super-hearing, says that she hears something that sounds like water flowing. That water is actually blood running through his veins. Despite having his throat ripped out by Juan, and then having his chest cut open and all of his organs exposed, he awakens from his eternal slumber, grabs Tilda, and screams “Where’s Sarkov?!” and we cut away. Okay, cliffhanger, I see you!

Sleeper Star: Australian comedian and actor Rhys Nicholson plays Dr. Alex Sarkov with darkness that’s offset by a streak of goofiness. Sarkov is meant to be a mysterious scientist who goes rogue, but Nicholson makes him extra weird so that he’s not just purely villainous.

Most Pilot-y Line: “We should call the police!” “Calling the police is what normal people do. We’re not normal people anymore.” Nope. You’re… The imperfects!

Our Call: SKIP IT! The Imperfects is… fine. It’s got a decent story, but after getting to know the characters, I just can’t say that I care that much about them, their super powers, or what ultimately happens to them. It’s not a bad show, just a little… imperfect.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.