Sweet Tooth (Season 1): A Promising Start

Written by Mike

Sweet Tooth’s story takes place in a world that has almost been destroyed by a terribly lethal disease commonly known as “The Sick”. It is about a boy named Gus who, like many other children born around the same time that The Sick appeared, is a hybrid. Hybrids are children that have taken on the aspects and abilities of different animals; Gus has deer antlers and heightened senses. He goes on a journey across the United States to find his missing mother whom he has never met. We follow Gus along his journey as he meets new allies and discovers the evils of this new world created by The Sick.

This is a coming-of-age story wrapped up in a post-apocalyptic adventure with a dash of mystery added in. Running parallel to Gus’ adventure is the story of Doctor Singh whose wife has The Sick, but due to apparently miraculous medical research, she has survived for years with the disease. This leaves us to wonder; what is the treatment for the sick? Is there a cure? What is the connection between The Sick and the hybrids? I must give an accolade to the creators of the show; they did a very good job of creating a narrative in which they do not answer all the questions to leave the show open for its inevitable second season, but they also do not make you feel like the first season is incomplete.

The show has 8 episodes, and it does a very good job with its storytelling. The smooth tone of the narrator (James Brolin) frames each episode with a type of warmth that pulls you in. Sweet Tooth strikes a perfect balance when it comes to pacing. Each episode takes its time to ensure that you enjoy yourself along the way, but at the same time feels like it packed in an hour and a half of story into a roughly forty-five-minute runtime. This tells me that the show writers know exactly what they want to say and exactly how to say it to both elicit the desired feeling from the audience and be efficient at the same time.

While post-apocalyptic settings tend to be great backdrops for violent conflict, the series so far has focused on world building, character development, and the dramatic aspects of the story. While there is a very apparent tension that continues to rise as each episode progresses the show has only dipped its toes into the real action that is sure to come. The suspense begins to build when Gus encounters and is target by The Last Men; a powerful faction made up of some of the remnants of the U.S. military that hunt hybrids due to the belief that they bring The Sick.

The characters of the show are all done well. One of the greatest parts of watching a series in my opinion is being able to watch characters develop and grow. This is one of the reasons that shows like Game of Thrones were so popular; people like seeing characters be changed by the many life altering events of their individual stories. In Sweet Tooth’s first season we are introduced to a few different characters, and each of them changes greatly over the season’s runtime. For now, only one season of character progression has taken place, but I am very interested in seeing how characters will change as the show goes on.

I will wrap this review up by saying that I rate season 1 of Sweet Tooth as Above Average on my five-tiered scale (Bad, Below Average, Average, Above Average, Excellent). While the show doesn’t change the way that we should look at how a series is made it has set itself up for future success by creating an interesting world, likeable characters that can be related to, and a captivating mystery just waiting to be unraveled.