Sometimes I watch some television shows that I’m not sure would be in my wheel house. This was one that I wasn’t sure what I was going to think about it. The trailers made it look interesting, dark magics, a strange world, and a bit of urban magic, but was it going to be too teenage angst ridden for me to enjoy, that was my main concern. And also, how were they going to make a more adult version of a kids cartoon?

The Story

Bloom thought that she was just a normal girl until an accident happened and she almost killed her mother with some magic. At that point, she got admitted into a special school in “Switzerland”. Really, it was a magic school for fairies. Most of the students there are fairy born, and Bloom doesn’t fit in right away. Things go crazy, around the school, however, as Burned Ones, a monster that had been thought to be gone for a long time start to show up again. Bloom also needs to figure out where she is from and how she fits into this world that is very new to her.

Thoughts On The Show

The Plot

This story is pretty predictable, though that’s not a horrible thing. Now, I don’t know that the show tries to be predictable, but a lot of the twists and turns it has coming are quite predictable. This is a bit of a knock, especially in the later episodes where everything falls into place in a way that you’d expect. There were a few interesting twists on things, but overall it felt like a young-adult story that had been done a lot of times before. And while it is a young-adult show, there is a lot of swearing in the show as well, not bad, but a surprising amount.

The Characters

The characters in the show are fine as well. In the dorm, the four girls that Bloom shares are room with are more interesting than here. Bloom falls into the boring main character trope. I’ve talked about it before, but the idea is that the main character is supposed to be standard enough that the viewer, or reader in the case of books, can insert themselves into the role that they are playing. It can work fine, but it has to be done with a deft hand, and it works better in books than shows. In this, all of her dormmates are more interesting than her, the love interest is more interesting than her. Bloom should be more interesting, and she is the main focus, but everything around her feels rushed somehow but also like it doesn’t mean as much or feel as intense as it should. Also, this is supposed to be high school aged kids, I’d believe college, it’s odd.

The Bad Guy(s)

Fate: The Winx Saga ends up having surprisingly interesting villains. I think that is the strong point of the show. Multiple villains show up throughout the show so I won’t spoil them all. One of the first we meet is another student named Beatrix. The villains definitely have their own agenda and believe what they are doing is right. For me that is one thing the show gets right. You can feel how bad these people are, but also that they so firmly believe they are the heroes of the story as well. Even the burned ones, who are more of a mindless drove are interesting monsters.

But Is the Show Good?

That’s what we are all really here to find out. Is Fate: The Winx Saga a good show? I’d say, kind of. In terms of world building, it is good. They have created a very interesting setting, a good school, and some very interesting ideas with the burned ones and how everything is working. In terms of the story, it’s a bit of a mess. I think it falls into too many tropes, which is common for young-adult focused shows. Locke And Key is another fantasy young-adult focused show, and while it strips away a lot of the adult content from the comics, it still keeps much of the spirit of it and the show has a lot of whimsy and tension to it. Fate: The Winx Saga doesn’t have that nearly as much. It comes across more as a CW show.

So, no, it’s not a good show, but did I enjoy watching it, generally yes. It was entertaining, like I said, the world building and the villains are good in the show and they deserve more than this standard young-adult handling of the story. But even with that issue, it didn’t get in the way of this feeling like something big and something different. It’d have been easy for it to feel like generic fantasy, but it doesn’t and that’s a credit to the show. I’ll definitely be checking out the second season if it comes out.

Should You Watch It?

I’ve tried to lay it out well so that you will know if this is the show for you. I think there is something enjoyable to watch there. But if you can’t stand the standard CW young-adult tropes, you won’t like this. Flat out as simple as that, if you are willing to dive into the world that is being created and just let the trope filled story lead you through it, it’s a fun watch. It isn’t anything deep, a popcorn show is what I’d call it, but it’s also not as bad as my knocking it would suggest.

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