We have watched enough kids’ TV to know that it’s hard to find shows that will engage kids but not annoy parents. When one of those shows come along, we tend to look past the flaws because we’re just happy we can watch a show with our kids that won’t make us want to leave the room. One of those shows, which debuted in October, is rolling out a new season.
Opening Shot: A shot of a city skyline. Two teenagers lie on a ledge at the top of a tall building.
The Gist: Kev Gardner (Niko Ceci) and Dylan Helsing (Zebastin Borjeau) are contemplating the “game changer” that starting high school will be, when their friend Carmie Henley (Kaileen Angelic Chang) flies to the roof and lands awkwardly. Carmie is a vampling — a Blended, meaning one parent was a Mystic and the other a human — and she’s testing out her flying powers. She thinks her powers are getting stronger. Dylan warns her that, even though he’s no longer a Hunter of Blendeds or Mystics, there will be other people after her. Also, there’s her birth mother, a Shapeshifter, to think about.
But as far as Carmie is concerned, her mother is Aasha (Ipsita Paul), not the Shapeshifter (Charlotte Legault). “This year, no Blended drama,” she says. Of course, that doesn’t prevent her from having nightmares about the Shapeshifter.
On their first day at Stoker High School (get it?), Carmie is excited, Kev gets bumped into by bigger kids as if he’s invisible, and Dylan feels like he lacks purpose. Carmie’s old rival, Leanna Timmons (Ana Araujo), is busy doing TikToks about killing it her first day. Carmie has a meet cute with a sophomore named Tristian (Will Coombs) that has her heart already aflutter.
Kev’s day brightens when he goes to the comic book shop and The Collector (Kris Siddiqi) tells him he got a package; it’s the comic book he wrote and drew. It’s about a vampling named Carmela. Carmie speeds to the shop when Kev calls her with the news — she’s seen in the background of one of Leanna’s videos — but then gets ticked off when she sees Carmela. Kev doesn’t think this character looks or acts anything like Carmie, but she disagrees.
Of course, what she’s ticked off at is that she doesn’t want anyone in high school to know she’s a Blended. But when Leanne’s video goes viral, her cover is blown.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? We’ll stick with our first-season assertion that I Woke Up A Vampire is a cross between Boy Meets World and The Umbrella Academy.
Our Take: While the main characters in I Woke Up A Vampire, created by Tommy Lynch, are in a new school and Carmie is facing some new enemies, the show still has the same light, hopeful tone it had in Season 1. Carmie keeps exploring her powers, though she’s still not sure if she wants to go full vampling as yet, unlike her friend Madison Spencer (Aaliyah Cinello), who has moved to the forest to embrace her full Mystic powers.
Also like the first season, there are parts of the show that, as the parents of the kid who the show is written for, will irritate you a bit. The kids talk fast, the acting is all over the place, and some of the characters are a little too precocious for their own good.
But we like that the stories of all three of the main characters have advanced a bit, and that they’re all facing different challenges. We hope Dylan is given more to do once he finds a purpose and an extracurricular club that makes sense for him, otherwise we’re not sure where his character is going. But it does seem that Kev and Carmie are on particular paths in Season 2, which helps us invest in the story instead of just scrolling our phone while our tween watches the episodes.
As we learn at the end of the first episode, Tristian is there for a reason, not just to be a cute sophomore Carmie can swoon over. How that translates to the conflict in the new season is yet to be determined.
What Age Group Is This For?: There’s some mild mystical violence and some foreboding, but we think the show is good for kids 7 and up.
Parting Shot: Tristian sees the video of Carmie’s running, says, “I found you, vampling,” shapeshifts into a bat and flies away.
Sleeper Star: We still like Aaliyah Cinello as Madison, but how will she be a part of the story if she’s hanging out in the woods?
Most Pilot-y Line: Dylan destroys a couple of computers in computer club when his Hunter instincts kick in, but it seems that he won’t be charged for them…?
Our Call: STREAM IT. I Woke Up A Vampire is still a fun show for your teens and tweens to watch, and there is still plenty of mythology there to keep parents engaged, as well.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
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