Charles Merritt believes this supernatural teenage drama might be good value for conversations about spiritual gifts
Lockwood and Co. - Is there a link between the supernatural and teenagers?
The TV Show: Lockwood and Co.
Rating: 12
Watch if you liked: Sherlock, Doctor Who, Ghostbusters
Running time: 8x 50 minute episodes
Genre: Supernatural, Teen Drama
Overview: Lockwood and Co. are an independent, freelance ghost hunters in a world where teenagers have unique abilities to see the ghosts of haunted pasts.
What you liked
It’s quite inventive and there’s a certain swagger and charm to the characters that kept me watching.
The use of swords as warning off ghosts is a pretty cool concept - I love me some swashbuckling action and there was some fun to be had with that.
There’s some good world building. The first episode did intrigue me and kept me from switching off before the second episode automatically played.
The two lead actors are great and I could see them going on to bigger things in the future. It’s been confirmed a second season is coming our way, so I guess this could become the next Stranger Things if Netflix play their cards right…
What you didn’t like
It felt like it was trying too hard to be Sherlock and about 10 years too late. I wouldn’t have minded if it actually was like Sherlock (that series is still fantastic) but it wasn’t nearly as clever as it needed to be and the pay-offs were slightly predictable and underwhelming.
There are certain tropes like the classic ‘will-they-won’t-they’ romance between Lockwood and the girl(?).
I’ll be honest, I didn’t quite get to the end of the series. There were a couple of reasons for that:
A) I moved flats and don’t have internet access to stream Netflix.
B) I was finding myself scrolling on my phone rather than paying much attention to what was happening on the screen.
Whilst excuse A is valid, excuse B opens a window into many a young person’s viewing habits… I normally pay attention to what I’m watching but I found myself getting restless in parts of the show which felt repetitive or cliche. The overall mystery was slightly too confusing and unclear for me to follow or care about.
Thoughts for parents:
I don’t know how you feel about the supernatural. If you don’t mind Lord of the Rings, then you’ll be alright here. It does have a mild horror element and I wouldn’t recommend children watching it below the recommended age rating.
There is something in the way that young people are more connected to the spiritual world that someone cleverer than I could argue lines up scripturally. We are sometimes too quick to dismiss a child’s experience of the supernatural - many people feel uneasy talking about angels and spirits and yet we read about it in the Bible.
Teenagers have power in the series - just as Jesus’ disciples did. And yet, adults might look down on them and expect too little. In what way are we encouraging our young people to use their spiritual gifting?
On the flip-side, some adults in the series exploit young people’s gifts for their own benefit. How often do we see parents, whether well-meaning or not, push the talents of their children to extremes to fulfil some unfulfilled dream of themselves?
A common thread of the ghosts in the series is that they are souls who long for justice. They ‘haunt’ because of some wrong doing that led them to their death. I don’t want to go too deep but I imagine there are people in our lives that haunt us - people who remind us of our own bad decisions and wrong doings. Whilst they may not be literal ghosts, are there ‘ghosts’ of our past that need addressing? Who do we need to apologise to or put things right with?
