I had high hopes for the new British teen drama/sci-fi show, “The Last Bus”. Even the first 2 episodes kept up the intrigue and were promising! I expected it to be great!! Sadly, it all went downhill from there. Even though the premise is promising—eccentric tech-billionaire/philanthropist decides he will solve humanity’s problems by designing drones that eradicate people! That’s truly the only promising thing about the entire show. The plot goes nowhere, and the main cast of characters starts out as quirky and endearing, and then they quickly become irritating and stereotypical. I’m not sure if they don’t have a lot of acting experience or if the directors just told them to “over-act” their characters or what, but it honestly gets painful to watch. I wish that wasn’t true
The series begins with the billionaire inviting chosen teenagers and people from different countries around the world to come and listen to his new invention pitch.
However, his diatribe turns into an ambush almost instantly and his machines simply start killing everyone. Well, they more dissolve them into oblivion. There is a core group of ragtag teenagers who somehow manage to survive and get back to their bus—which is ridiculous in its own right because they have zero skills other than pure luck. Their teacher sacrifices himself so they can arrive safely but then they don’t really know where to go. They manage to drive back to their hometown only to discover that all of the people are gone. It’s unclear whether everyone has been dissolved there as well or simply evacuated. For some unknown reason, they decide their high school is the best place for them to hide out? I feel like the writers and producers of those series both tried to go for something altogether new and inventive while at the same time pulling elements from 80’s high school coming of age movies, and it just didn’t go together like they thought it would.
In comparing this series with something like “Stranger Things” you can see how quickly it falls flat and is both dull and cheesy at the same time. The technology is both far-fetched and lame and although the drones are supposed to be “menacing”, it just never quite clicks. To top it off, the main nerd of the group forms a bond with one of the rogue drones and they try to throw in an A.I. component as well.
Robert Sheehan, from “The Umbrella Academy” is probably the only shunting light of the show. And the last couple of episodes improve slightly as he comes back, but that’s truly it. Perhaps if they had a truly amazing cast, better acting, better writing, better directing, and more believable sub-plots with more danger, it could have been something. So basically, a whole new show. As it is, there really aren’t any redeeming characteristics to speak of I am sad to say. Despite all the hype and the articles before release saying to “put this show at the top of your list”, if you are looking for an edgy-new-coming of age teen drama—Keep looking. Because this surely isn’t it.
