The Best Superhero Show No One's Watching is Currently on Hulu

Summary

• On March 6, the second season of a new British superhero comedy was released on Hulu.
• Unlike most superhero movies and TV series, this one takes a deep approach to the psycho-emotional component of the characters without excessive satire.
• Critics and audiences have loved both seasons, noting the 'extraordinary' nature of the series.

Over the past year, it seems like we've been hearing the phrase 'superhero fatigue' from literally every corner of the media. The endless content of the MCU and DCEU has really devalued any interest, but it seems to be less about superheroes and more about the politics of Disney and Warner Bros. After all, superhero genre is experiencing a kind of renaissance, with more satirical titles like The Boys or Harley Quinn (yes, still DC, but hardly on par with other comic books, movies, and TV series, being a sassy parody). There's also intriguing new settings with a distinct approach and sometimes their own cultural specificity — like the anime series My Hero Academia and One Punch Man or the recent Disney+ hit, the K-drama Moving.

All of this suggests that, on the contrary, the public is still quite obsessed with superpowers. Let's face it, we've all thought about what abilities we'd like to have and how we'd use them. But what if such powers were no longer the exclusive domain of a few people in tights, but became ubiquitous capacities of the human body, like the ability to breathe?

This is roughly the premise of last year's British comedy series Extraordinary — and it really is extraordinary. Except not because of the superpowers, but because of the protagonist, who has no superpowers at all... So let's take a look at this show, as the second season was recently released on Hulu on March 6, 2024.

What Is Extraordinary About?

'What I love about the show is that you see the more power that people have, their shortcomings show up even more. Which I feel is quite realistic. If everyone had superpowers in the world, it would not be a less chaotic world,' the show's star Luke Rollason told Inverse.

The world of Extraordinary is indeed incredibly chaotic due to the fact that in the story, everyone on Earth has begun to have superpowers. Only the chaos isn't related to the sudden atrocities occurring in broad daylight. No, society seems to maintain the same stability. The real chaos is primarily internal, as the characters in this British comedy series are trying to understand themselves, with superpowers becoming an allusion to our attempts to escape reality, or to think of ourselves as truly extraordinary even when we're not, and vice versa.

At the center of the story is 25-year-old Jen (Máiréad Tyers). While her parents can manipulate technology and sense the emotions of others, and her roommates Carrie (Sofia Oxenham) and Kash (Bilal Hasna) can talk to the dead and travel through time, respectively, Jen has never discovered any powers in herself. Even her cat, Jizzlord (Rollason), has superpowers! Well, he's not really a cat, but a shapeshifter who's learning to be human again.

Rapturous Reviews from Critics and Audiences

Both seasons of Extraordinary received an impressive 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes from critics, who praised the show's strong emphasis on the emotional component of superpowered characters in a slice-of-life setting. Viewers liked the second season even more because while the first season focused on love and romance, the second season devoted more time to self-discovery.

As we said, the series is now available on Hulu, but only for those of our readers who live in the United States. For residents of other countries, Extraordinary is available on the Star segment of Disney+, while in Latin America, the series is available exclusively on Star+, also owned by Disney.

Source: Iverse.