By Naomi Anderson, Entertainment Editor
If you’re looking for action-packed intensity, family ties, love, fighting and blood, The 100 is the show for you. Based off the book series by Kass Morgan, The 100 was brought to life back in 2014 on the television channel The CW.
Three generations after a nuclear war on Earth, 4,000 survivors live in space on an ark, and the leaders of the Ark decide to send 100 juveniles down to Earth to see if it’s habitable again.
Not having any idea what the future holds for them, the story follows Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor), the leader who was imprisoned after helping her father release critical information regarding the Ark’s failing life-support systems; Octavia Blake (Marie Avgeropoulos), who was imprisoned because of a strict one child only system, and she was a second sibling; Bellamy Blake (Bob Morley), a troublemaker who goes down to Earth to watch over his sister; and Raven Reyes (Lindsey Morgan), a smart and strong astronaut that knows how to blow stuff up — in a good way.
The group of 100 are met with challenges such as water creatures, fires, and a vicious, wild group called Grounders. The Grounders got their name from being born on Earth rather than in space. They are descendants of those who died years ago in the nuclear war. The Grounders use bows and arrows, spears, axes, and other sharp and scary weapons on strangers, like Jasper Jordan (Devon Bostick), who was impaled with a spear when he crossed a river with Clarke and his friends.
The first episode had about 2.73 million viewers, but viewership went down throughout the season. It rebounded near the end of the first season, but unfortunately, the more seasons came, the more viewership dropped.
Many say the views went down after the show killed off Lexa (Alycia Debnam-Carey), the leader of the Grounders known as Heda. The reason many thought this was because Lexa was lesbian in the show and fell in love with Clarke. The LGBT+ community thought the showrunners’ decision was anti-gay, but fans learned later that Lexa was killed off because the actress was casted in the AMC series Fear the Walking Dead, a prequel to the worldwide show The Walking Dead.
Viewership also dropped after the killing off of Lincoln (Ricky Whittle), a Grounder who was in love with Octavia Blake. Some fans criticized the loss of Lincoln, suggesting he was removed because he was black. It was revealed that Whittle’s character was killed off because of bullying from Jason Rothenberg, the producer and writer of the show. “A lot was made of something my mom said all over Twitter, but everything she said was true,” Whittle said in an interview with Afterbuzz TV. “He was professionally bullying me, cutting out all the storyline that I was supposed to be doing, cutting lines, cutting everything out, trying to make my character and myself as insignificant as possible.”
Aside from the behind-the-scenes drama, the show makes up for it with battles, combat, and tension. Clarke will do anything to save her people, Bellamy will do anything for Octavia, and Octavia fights for herself and despises her brother because he was partially the cause of why Lincoln was killed.
The show returns with Season 5 on April 24 on The CW to reveal what the characters are up to after Earth is devastated by a second nuclear apocalypse in Season 4. I would give this series a four out of five stars!