The Prisoner meets Harry Potter and the Prisoner
of Azkaban in this new
live-action original series.
Drew Van Acker stars as
Ian Archer, a high schooler
suspended for beating up
a bully who picked on his
friend. Heedless of parental
advice to keep his superpowered
reflexes in check,
Archer wakes up in a rigid prep school where he’ll
learn to conform, or else.
Headmaster (adults here are known by their titles)
tells him Tower Prep is for “young people who think
they’re out of step with the rest of the world, when
the fact is that everybody else is lagging behind
them.”
In a failed escape attempt, Archer bonds with three
other newcomers — CJ Ward (Elise Gatien), Gabe
Forrest (Ryan Pinkston) and Suki Sato (Dyana Liu). He
saves them from the eye-glowing monsters patrolling
the school’s perimeter.
What teen doesn’t feel at some point he or she’s
an outcast with unrecognized abilities that the right
friends could unleash?
CGI effects and feet-to-hand martial arts meet the
action-adventure quotient, and there’s mystery and
conflict galore.
I grade Tower Prep’s pilot episode at least a B-plus.
