Wolf Pack will debut on Paramount+ on Jan. 26, with new episodes weekly.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer star Sarah Michelle Gellar makes her return to teen horror in Paramount+’s Wolf Pack, also serving as an executive producer, and its first episode is evidence that she could use a better agent. While billed as a main character, she’s barely in the premiere, which is a mess of terrible special effects, clunky writing, and YA cliches.
The adaptation of Edo Van Belkom’s book of the same name mostly follows California high school students Everett Lang (Armani Jackson) and Blake Navarro (Bella Shepard) who are forced to evacuate their school bus along with their classmates when a nearby wildfire drives a veritable Noah’s ark of panicked animals running across the highway. The striking image of a smoldering bighorn sheep is the best thing about the episode but the rest of the scene is B-movie fare, involving people having their skulls crushed like watermelons by stampeding ungulates or being grabbed by monstrous figures from the smoke.
Both Everett and Blake are bitten by a wolf in the chaos, leaving glowing red wounds that only they seem to be able to see. The bites connect them to each other in a way somewhat reminiscent of Sense8. They’re also linked to fellow high schoolers Luna (Chloe Rose Robertson) and Harlan Briggs (Tyler Lawrence Gray), who were found and adopted by a park ranger 16 years ago, the last time the area was hit by a devastating wildfire. If you were going to give the show some credit for having relatively realistic portrayals of teen appearances just wait a bit. Being bitten makes Everett and Blake super hot, clearing up Blake’s acne scars and giving the previously dweeby Everett chiseled abs.
The character introductions are all done in the most blunt way possible, with each person stating their defining motivations or character flaws. Everett suffers from an anxiety disorder, constantly explaining his symptoms and treatments. When Blake has a panic attack — which Shephard’s acting does not sell — he guides her through a yoga breathing exercise with no regard for how much smoke the fire would presumably put in the air. It feels like the writers spent so much trying to tap into Gen Z’s keen interest in mental health that they didn’t bother to actually make the disaster at the core of the episode matter.
Wolf Pack does present a fairly realistic portrayal of autism in Blake’s younger brother Danny (Nevada Jose), but Blake’s monologue about her difficult family life is overwrought. Still worse is the overwritten interplay between Luna and Harlan, who want to find their real father and their “pack.” It’s hard to care about any of these characters enough to be scared of the monster pursuing them.
That’s especially true given how awful the special effects and fight sequences are, employing CGI that looks like it could be 20 years old. Jackson and Shephard don’t deliver believable fear, especially when their flight is blocked by a single board just so Everett can show off his newfound power and clear the way. The biggest thrills of werewolf shows and movies often come from dramatic transformation sequences, but the cheapness of Wolf Pack’s visuals promise it will likely be disappointing when the characters eventually release the beasts within.
Gellar plays Kristin Ramsey, an arson investigator who warns Everett that one of his classmates was behind the blaze. Cue a cheesy flashback to all the faces on the bus. This whodunit is clearly meant to be a season-long drama, forcing the teens to balance their normal student lives with revelations about their wolfy selves, but Wolf Pack’s premiere doesn’t provide any reason to spend another night waiting for whatever big drama the full moon will bring.
source https://www.ign.com/articles/wolf-pack-series-premiere-review-from-a-spark-to-a-flame