Dangerous minds in The Institute + 7 more superpowered series

Chain them or train them? From the X-Men to the Harry Potter movies, adults seem to take two main approaches when kids and teenagers develop abilities that are normally reserved for budget-guzzling militaries. One group argues that every teen is a potential school shooter and it’s best to nip those mini-Hitlers in the bud while you still can. The other argues that with great power comes great responsibility, so it’s back to school so you can learn to harness your full potential and get fitted for your Spider-Man suit. Both groups are adamant that what they do is for the good of all mankind. 

It’s pretty clear from the start of Stephen King’s (Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, The Outsider) new series The Institute, which side the grownups fall on. Kidnapping a 14-year-old like Luke (Joe Freeman) in their sleep is no way to say hello. And The Institute clearly isn’t a Hogwarts-style school for pampered posh kids. The stark grey concrete corridors, fences, and guarded perimeters get their prison message across loud and clear. Children at The Institute are robbed of their homes, clothes, freedom, privacy, bodily autonomy, friends and families. And every effort is made to enforce the fact that while they might have superpowers, it’s the grownups who hold the real power. It’s like trapping a spider in a jar and studying it before you flush it down the nearest toilet (don’t do this to our spider friends in real life, or Sting will get you!)

Headmistress of The Institute, Ms Sigsby (Mary-Louise Parker), tells Luke that he has been “recruited” but that’s a word that implies consent from the person you’re recruiting. It’s just the first in a long, long series of lies and misdirections about what’s really happening in the Front Half of The Institute, and the Back Half, from which no “recruit” has ever returned. So when Ms Sigsby tells Luke, “The work you're about to become a part of, is, without a doubt, the most important work taking place anywhere on Earth. You are, without question, about to participate in saving the world,” we get the impression that there are ways to interpret that statement that don’t involve medals and a parade. 

Luke is told to “Follow any order given from a staff member without question or delay,” and warned to comply with all the medical procedures and tests they give him. If he doesn’t, there will be grown-up consequences, because in the eyes of The Institute, “You're not kids. Not here.” Doesn’t that just sound so humane and above board? Surely no harm can come from unquestioning obedience … or from adults who’re just following orders and doing their duty.

Watch The Institute on Showmax. New episodes each Monday, fresh from the US. 

Won’t somebody think of the children? 7 more series about kids with supernatural abilities

1. Alex Rider Season 1-3

On the surface, the exclusive Point Blanc Academy in the French Alps is a boarding school for troubled rich kids. But after 15-year-old Alex Rider (Otto Farrant) survives being kidnapped and tortured by MI6's Department of Special Operations as a “test”, they assign him to go undercover at Point Blanc as a new student named Alex Friend. Alex soon finds out that all the students have been separated from their families (and that each of their families controls an important global industry). They’ve all been cut off from the outside world, and are subjected to experiments in their sleep, as well as being filmed at all times. The academy’s director, Dr Greif (Haluk Bilginer), openly admires Adolf Hitler, and there’s something even more sinister afoot at the school. This is the focus of Alex Rider Season 1, which sets Alex on the trail of the sinister SCORPIA organisation throughout the series. 

2. His Dark Materials Season 1-3

If there was a propaganda poster for torturing kids in the name of the greater good, Mrs Marisa Coulter (Ruth Wilson) would be posing on it. As the head of the General Oblation Board of London and a leading figure within the Magistarium, she’s the one ordering the “Gobblers” to snatch children off the street and take them to a top-secret research facility at Bolvanger near the North Pole, where they are separated from the other half of their souls – their animal-like daemons – in an effort to save them from adult sin. Despite the effect of this procedure being somewhere between death and a lobotomy, not even Mrs Coulter’s own daughter, Lyra Belacqua (Dafne Keen), is safe from her. But Lyra is a born rebel and when the Gobblers snatch her friend, she sets off to track him down, defy the Magistarium, and uncover the truth about their world. 

3. Vampire Academy

Julie Plec (The Vampire Diaries) mixes elements taken from across Richard Mead’s Vampire Academy novel series in this show. The setting is St Vladimir's Academy, a boarding school for the supernatural elite, where social status makes the rules and sets the etiquette. The show centres on old money Moroi vampire Princess Lissa Dragomir (Daniela Nieves), whose best friend, despite a massive social divide, is Rose Hathaway (Sisi Stringer), the dhampir (half-human, half-vampire) who’s being trained to protect her from strigoi – vampires who’ve gone mad from blood lust. Lissa has to learn to navigate the tricky grownup political currents that she’ll need to conquer if she’s to inherit the throne. And there are secrets about the exploitation at the heart of the vampire-dhampir bond, and uncomfortable truths about where both dhampirs and striogi come from, that’ll make her crown heavy to bear.

4. Domino Day

A young witch and barista named Domino (Siena Kelly) hides the fact that it’s not caffeine keeping her alert and ready – it’s the power she’s drained off other people. Normally Domino is able to limit her impact by selecting her victims from the worst potential options she comes across on dating apps. When one red flag king secretly films their encounter, Domino’s abilities come to the attention of Kat (Alisha Bailey), the head of the local coven who’ve been trying to track her down for practising a form of magic that has been banned by the Elders. But with hints of colonialism and sexism at play, could the Elders’ claim to “authority” be just another case of mediocre men trying to limit powerful young women? 

5. School Spirits

Maddie Nears (Peyton List) has the assignment of her life to research after she finds herself on the “other” side of Split River High School, with no memory of how she crossed over. As she tries to work out how she died – without leaving the school’s grounds – she meets all the other dead students who’re stuck in the spirit world. Luckily for Maddie, her BFF Simon (Kristian Ventura) can still see her. But she finds out that all the other ghosts could see what her boyfriend Xavier (Spencer MacPherson) was getting up to behind her back! The older ghosts stand as a warning to Maddie to get to the bottom of her mystery before every day is a school day with their scheming dead science teacher, Mr Martin (Josh Zuckerman), for eternity. The series is loosely based on the graphic novel of the same name by Nate and Megan Trinrud, and Maria Nguyen.

6. Spooksoeker

Supernatural young adult drama series based on François Bloemhof’s Spooksoeker series of novels. Does your school boast a haunted library? How about a sinister swimming pool? If you need a ghostbuster, call Hoërskool Sekelrivier’s Warno ( Rico Immelman) for help. The day Warno turns 15, he gains the ability to see dead people, and to help them to cross over, with the help of his best friend Allies (Joshwin Dyson) and the girl next door, Melissa (Zarelda de Bruin). But not all ghosts are willing to go quietly! The star-studded cast (living and dead) includes Roeline Daneel, Laudo Liebenberg, June van Merch, Morné Visser, Daneel van der Walt, David Isaacs, Deon Coetzee, Ira Blanckenberg, Ivan Zimmerman, Izel Bezuidenhout, Jane de Wet, Terence Bridgett, Marguerite van Eeden, and Waldemar Schultz. 

7. Fright Krewe

Animated horror-fantasy series. A group of misfit teens in New Orleans have their lives overturned as they find out that voodoo queens, vampires, rougarous, ghosts, monsters and demons are as real as they are, and real trouble. After a girl named Soliel (Sydney Mikayla) accidentally releases an ancient evil from a graveyard, the spirit of Marie Laveau grants her, and the bunch of random kids who were with her, the supernatural powers that they will need to  fulfil an ancient prophecy and save the city from a demon menace. Why send grownups to do the job if you can send the kids? This Dreamworks animated adventure series was co-created by horror kings Eli Roth and James Frey, and all 20 episodes from both seasons are available to stream. 

Watch The Institute on Showmax. New episodes each Monday, fresh from the US.