Don't let the fact that Netflix's new supernatural show is based on one of Nickelodeon's most popular cartoons fool you. It's about to get dark. The streaming service dropped a trailer for Fate: The Winx Saga on Thursday, Dec. 10, and the clip is not G-rated.
Think of Fate: The Winx Saga not as a live-action adaptation of a cartoon, but as a mix of Netflix's Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and Zoey 101. It's a coming of age story that takes place at a fancy boarding school, like Zoey 101, but the students are magical fairies. (They're also a few years older than the Zoey 101 crew, and way less innocent, hence the CAOS vibes.)
Fate: The Winx Saga follows Bloom (Abigail Cowen), a fairy studying her craft at Alfea, described as "a magical boarding school in the Otherworld." There, students are either fairies or "specialists," which is basically a fancy term for a soldier meant to guard the Otherworld from "Burned Ones." At Alfea, Bloom makes friends with a group of fairies, Stella (Hannah van der Westhuysen), Aisha (Precious Mustapha), Terra (Eliot Salt), and Musa (Elisha Applebaum). What follows are evil encounters, mysteries, and, of course, love stories. But, let's be honest, you had me at "magical boarding school."
Fans of The Winx Club animated series will recognize that each fairy controls one element. Bloom is seen shooting fire out of her hands, Terra controls plant life, Aisha can manipulate water. Meanwhile, Musa is an "empath" who can play with people's minds and wears headphones to block out the noise, and Stella is a light fairy, per The Guardian.
Then there's a mysterious person controlling lightening, hot guys fighting with swords, and what looks like a creepy ritual in the woods (because it's not a sexy magic show unless there's something in the woods). But there's also something deeper going on. "You deserve to know what I am," a female voice says in a voice over towards the end of the teaser. Hmm... sounds like someone is keeping a powerful magical secret.
More violent threats and a new mystery aside, it seems like the fairies in the live-action adaptation share the same powers and basic traits as their animated counterparts, but one thing they do not share is their looks. According to writer and co-creator Brian Young, who led the adaptation, this was entirely on purpose.
"Nobody looks like that," he told The Guardian, no doubt referencing the animated fairies' model-like figures. "It was the most important thing to me that every kid can feel like they see themselves in it." And fans of the animated series shouldn't expect this new show to stick to specific gender roles either. "In our show, boys can be fairies, girls can be specialists," Young said. "We're in the 21st century."
Fate: The Winx Saga couldn't come at a better time. With CAOS ending with Season 4 on Dec. 31, I worried my need for teenage angst mixed with supernatural battles would be left unaddressed. Luckily, I'll only need to wait about a month before diving into this new series, which premieres on Netflix Jan. 22. Plus the lead, Cowan, is best known for playing Dorcas on CAOS. Even though she's ditched the crown braids and dark lipstick, watching her as Bloom, you can almost imagine Fate as an alternate universe CAOS spinoff.
Image: Netflix