Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Teenage Kiss: The Future Is Dead’ on Max, A Series About Teens Trying To Save The World From The Adults Who Destroyed It

In Teenage Kiss: The Future Is Dead, the Brazilian series now streaming on Max, a select group of teens have taken it upon themselves to secretly rebel against the status quo and save the world from the adults running it. While the story is compelling, what sets the show apart is its use of vivid color, which is both literal and symbolic: as adults age in this dystopian era, they turn “monochromatic” and are rendered in muted grays, while the still-vibrant teens are full of color, to the point where they sweat and even barf rainbow colors. In order to keep the world from turning completely black and white, these teens have to unlock their own special powers to fight against the government and revive their future.

TEENAGE KISS: THE FUTURE IS DEAD: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A teenage boy runs at full speed through the alleys and side streets of a city. When he finally pauses to catch his breath, he lets out a scream.

The Gist: The running teenager is Ariel (played by Brazilian actor Benjamín) and he’s taking a very circuitous way home. Along his route, he sees the body of another teenager lying on the ground dead. Police and media swirl around the teen, and we see Ariel’s father watching TV coverage of the boy’s death at home. He’s concerned for Ariel, who has not arrived home yet, but he’s also disturbed by the other boy’s death, which is being reported on the news as the result of gang-related violence. The boy, Aldo, was a member of TK, or Teenage Kiss, an underground group of students who are initiated into the group with a literal kiss, and have special powers that they use for good in order to rebel against the government. In this world, the government is shady (relatable) and all the adults are pill poppers who are literally gray: as they age, everyone here is stripped of their lifeblood, energy and any color in their body.

When Ariel finally does return home to his worried parents, they’re relieved and now they can finally celebrate: it’s the boy’s 15th birthday, and they sing as he blows out the candles on a cake they set out for him. What we won’t find out until the second episode is that, although Ariel is not yet a member of Teenage Kiss, he wants to be, and he was running home after attending an event where the group, including Aldo, was hanging out. While he was there, Ariel received a kiss from LinLin (Giulia Del Bel), one of the leaders of the group.

To be kissed is an initiation of sorts, and once that happens, teens begin a transformation process that starts with hangover-like nausea that causes rainbow-colored vomit, which happens to Ariel the next day at school. Once that happens, you’re brought to the circus-like underground lair where you’re initiated into the group and given a set of headphones that allow communication with your fellow TK members.

The show is slow to explain how and why society has become monochromatic, though it’s no doubt a way for the government to control the adults. We also know that the Amazon rainforest has been destroyed and industrialized, and all of Brazil, the buildings, the streets, everything, has gone gray, just as the adults have. If this is the “dead” future these kids have to look forward to, the teens in TK are not having it. The problem is that, it seems like perhaps the government, and not gang violence, is killing them off, starting with Aldo, and they don’t know who will be next.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? While tonally not quite as grim as The Hunger Games, it feels like there’s a natural comparison here, given that they’re both structured around dystopian futures with corrupt governments willing to kill the children they purport to protect, and they both use the juxtaposition of drab grays to identify those who are compromised or victimized by society, and bright pops of color (in both the Capitol in The Hunger Games in among the teens in Teenage Kiss) to signify two very distinct ways of life.

Our Take: Teenage Kiss is the kind of show that doesn’t bother too much with exposition or context, and you often have to fill in the blanks as you go, or wait for a flashback to offer explanation. While that can feel confusing up front, all is explained as the story unfolds. Teenage Kiss doesn’t just rely on storytelling to express what’s happening though, the actual look of the series is an essential component to understanding what’s happening, with the vivid use of color depicting the contrast between the members of TK and the rest of society.

This eight-episode series is based on a three-book comics series, and there was clearly a lot of thought put into translating the powerful visuals of the comics for the screen, but it’s a success. While plenty of films and shows have played with the use color (going all the way back to The Wizard of Oz) and color washes to evoke a specific atmosphere or represent a significant change in environment, the swirling use of fluorescents and neon used here to symbolize the growing power of the TK isn’t just evocative, it’s artful.

Sex and Skin: None so far, but as the name suggests, there is a lot of kissing, often with a lot of tongue.

Parting Shot: A wall covered in graffiti reads, “Welcome to the present. Say goodbye to the past. The future is dead.”

Memorable Dialogue: “We’re building here a future where dreaming is possible,” one of the members of the TK, a teen who calls himself Clown tells rest of his followers. Like him, they’re disillusioned with adults and the government who have all but stifled the ability to dream, and they plan to reclaim what’s theirs.

Our Call: STREAM IT! While dystopian fantasy can feel overdone, Teenage Kiss: The Future Is Dead breathes new life into the genre thanks to a jolt of color and the wishful thinking that the kids will be our saviors.