The new Netflix series, Sweet Tooth, takes inspiration from the limited comic book series drawn and created by Jeff Lemire and published by DC Comic’s Vertigo imprint. This version is much lighter in tone than the comic book series. It is a good thing too because we already have several shows like The Walking Dead and movies like Army of the Dead which fall into the dark apocalyptic world-class.
Yes, there are elements of danger and yes there is killing but it does not consume the eight episode first season. Instead we have a growing child who is full of curiosity, fun, has imagination galore, and who itches to know what is beyond the world his father and him inhabit. However, Gus’s father does not want his son to go beyond the fence near their home in the forst. He fears the bad men who make fires and harms kids like Gus who have animal characteristics.( In the boy’s case he has the ears and horns of a deer along with a strong sense of smell.) So the two of them have to stay hidden.
Sadly Gus’s father becomes sick and dies leaving the boy on his own for a year. His lonely world gets broken when a new set of hunters find him. However, someone comes to his rescue former football player Tommy Jeppard.
As the series goes on the two of them travel from Yellow Stone National Park where Gus and his father lived to Colorado where Gus hopes to find his mother Birdie, who he knows little about. Along their journey they meet a girl with the nickname Bear and the team of kids she leads in the name of protecting children like Gus.
When the focus is not directly on the boy it turns to Dr. Aditya Signh and his wife Rani to live in the suburbs or to Aimee and her daughter Wendy who live in a zoo. Their worlds collide with Gus’s as the series reaches episodes seven and eight. I hope enough Netflix subscribers find this program and watch it so it gets a renewal. I want to see how a season two would go and if I will find it as charming as this first season.
