TV Series Review : The Fades Season 1

The Fades is a British supernatural drama television series broadcast on BBC Three and BBC HD.

The programme centres around an English teenager named Paul who is haunted by apocalyptic dreams that nobody can explain and is able to see spirits of the dead, known as the Fades, all around him. The Fades can't be seen, smelt, heard or touched by other humans they are what is left of humans who have died but not been accepted into Heaven. As such, the Fades left on Earth have become embittered and vengeful towards the human race. We are shown in the first episode that the Fades have found a way to become partly human again and regain control of touch within the real world. However, they remain unseen in the world except to those special few like Paul (Angelics) who have the ability to perceive the Fades. Paul finds himself pulled into a conflict between the Angelics and the Fades, trying to prevent the Fades from breaking back into the world and destroying the human race. The Fades school scenes were filmed at Queens School, Bushey.

The Fades
Air Date: 21 September 2012
Episodes: 6
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
Buy: Amazon.co.uk || Amazon (US)

Review:

     When I watched the trailer for this series I was getting ready for another low-budget series with nothing to offer except killing time. I was excited to see that I was wrong.
     The special effects are as I thought of low quality but they have done a great job blending them in the show and that makes them easily watchable. The environment is also showing the low-budget but at the same time the ingenuity of the producers. The acting is average to good, with the exception of the sidekick, he was just awesome, he was funny, sad, anxious, excited and he could pass to the viewer each one of those feelings, not to mention his constant references to nerdy movies and shows that made the series so familiar and life like to me :D
     Finally, I have to comment on the most imaginative, ingenious and innovating afterlife existance. According to the scriptwriter of the series, the dead are becoming ghosts, called fades, that walk the earth amongst us invisible and unable to communicate, they can just watch us. If they touch organic matter they suffer extreme pain so they don't like hugs :P
     Now there are some people who can see and hear the fades called the angelics. Most of them have supernatural powers, healing, banish undead and such. They are currently at war with the fades that they think could be dangerous to the humans even though they can't touch them. It would be too spoilery to say why they are at war and how the fades where created but still there is an interesting story behind that.
     So the things start getting interesting when the fades start fighting back. Their leader is a fade that can somehow interact with our world while still invisible. That makes him an efficient killer. When he kills he has this hunger to eat human flesh, he is closer to a zombie than a ghost at that point. I hope that isn't much spoiler but I will say it: at the later episodes he becomes visible and regenarates his own body. At that point he still has the hunger for human flesh but now he is more like a vampire without the common weaknesses, garlic, silver, sunlight and such. He is just immortal, inteligent and very hungry. So to sum it up, first a human dies, then he becomes a fade, then he becomes a zombie and then a vampire. That rules. Thank you BBC for another great story.