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REVIEW
REVIEW
Astrid & Lilly, the self-consciousness slayers
Teen TV is a haVen for ouTsiders.
For every glossy mean-girl soap, there
is a cult classic in the Veronica Mars
vein. It makes sense: Has anyone sur-
vived high school without ever feel-
ing like they didn’t belong? Which
might explain why, when it comes to
portraying female freaks and geeks,
Holly wood always gets away with
casting actors who meet its super-
human beauty standards.
By virtue of its charming leads,
Syfy’s supernatural dramedy
Astrid & Lilly Save the World breaks
that mold. Samantha Aucoin and
Jana Morrison play the eponymous
besties—witty teens thrown to-
gether by the cruel calculus that so
often relegates big girls to the social
sidelines. Timid and self- conscious,
Aucoin’s Lilly takes refuge in a bed-
room plastered with pictures of her
pop- culture faves. Astrid (Morrison)
is the bold one, with a hyper critical
mom and a white-hot crush on gothy
Sparrow (Spencer Macpherson).
The girls prowl their suburban
hell scape by car nightly to keep
tabs on their peers. When they end
up at a house party and jerky jock
Tate (Kolton Stewart) christens
them the “Pudge Patrol,” they react
like any teen weirdo worth her Doc
Martens—by ritually burning items
associated with him while howling at
the moon. They’re just venting, but
then Tate doesn’t show up to school
and a hunky stranger, Brutus (Olivier
Renaud), materializes to inform
them that their spell, such as it was,
opened a portal to another dimen-
sion. If they don’t close it, “humanity
sort of disappears.”
That quest entails vanquishing
a series of monsters, with campy
special effects and story lines that
draw parallels between fighting
demons and battling to love
yourself in a world that hates you.
If that sounds a lot like Buffy the
Vampire Slayer, rest assured that
creators Noelle Stehman and Betsy
Van Stone are paying self-aware
homage. Offbeat running gags and
sharp, foul- mouthed dialogue keep
the show fresh. But what makes
Astrid & Lilly unique is its lovingly
written, endearingly portrayed
outsider heroines. —J.B.
ASTRID & LILLY SAVE THE WORLD airs on
Syfy starting Jan. 26
THE GILDED AGE: HBO; AS WE SEE IT: AMAZON STUDIOS; ASTRID & LILLY SAVE THE WORLD: SYFY
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Morrison, left, and Aucoin confront the evil that lurks in the hearts of high schoolers
