The 100 (Season 5) (1 Viewer)

[Adam Lenhardt]

What a terrific finish.

One thing this show knows how to do well is finales -- especially the final acts. Each season has ended in a completely different place from where it started.

This was a very inconsistent season. It started out incredible, and then took a nose dive and stayed there for several episodes.

I agree that the middle stretch of episodes was the weakest, but I was pretty happy with the season overall. The weakest for me is still the A.L.I.E. season, because it was too Invasion of the Body Snatchers, at the expense of the human drama.

But

Spoiler

end of Book One???

Unlike most CW shows that shoot a couple months ahead of their air date, "The 100" shoots like a cable series where the entire season is shot before the first episode airs. Because The CW was late handing out their renewals for the midseason shows, they didn't know while writing/filming this finale whether it was going to be a season finale or a series finale. As a result, they went with a more definitive ending than they would have had they known they were coming back. So the writers approached it like this was the end of one five season story, and next season is the start of a new story with many of the same characters.

Looking forward to Season Six

This finale was the 71st episode. I think ending it at a nice round 100 episodes would be about perfect. That would give them two longer seasons or three shorter seasons to wrap things up.

 

[ChristopherG]

That season finale was crazy. What an incredible way to end a roller coaster ride. Can't wait for season 6.....

 

[DaveF]

Watched the two-parter finale for The 100 S5 last night. The start of the season was the best it’s been in two or three years. I was struggling to stay interested during the Ali and Prime Fire seasons. But the conclusion last year leading back the first season’s existential “lifeboat” survival questions was thrilling. And the finale was affecting, with the final complete loss of the Earth as humanity’s home, and especially the epilogue for Monty.

The middle of the season, though, was getting boring again. The 100 is its best when it’s character driven sci-fi. It’s now tedious when it’s angsty action figures smashing into each other.

In the finale, I was thinking how I much prefer the modern 13 episode seasons that are really tight, over bloated old-school 22 episode seasons like The 100. And then I realized that S5 of The 100 was only 13 episodes. And I think it needs to be cut further to a 10 episode season to keep it tight.

The conclusion was strong, our characters are back together, no longer physically separated, and now presumably no longer separated by faction or cause. This is certainly enough to keep me interested for the next season.

 

[DaveF]

Aside: One of the reasons I like The 100 is its balanced, if possibly woman-led, cast. I was thinking on how it passes the Bechdel Test, and then the scene with Clarke interrogating Ecco came on in which the two women discussed a man (Bellamy), and I thought ok so it’s not The Expanse. But doing some quick reading, while it struggles against the Bechdel criteria as a soapy relational show, it certainly passes the Mako Mori test, which is better suited to long form TV shows.

“The "Mako Mori test", formulated by Tumblr user "Chaila" and named after the only significant female character of Pacific Rim, asks whether a female character has a narrative arc that is not about supporting a man's story.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechdel_test#Derived_tests

 

[mattCR]

Dave- you're right regarding a series. I say this because you can have entire episodes of 100 that absolutely pass the Bechdel test; and as a whole, the female characters are well realized with their own motivations. For a series at a 70+ episodes, it would also be unrealistic to not have a sequence where characters discuss another character or focus on another character as a matter of rising dramatic action, regardless of the gender. Hell, it can happen with robots or aliens in some series

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

The sixth season of the "The 100" will premiere Tuesday, April 30 at 9/8c