A DARK INHERITANCE

This admixture of suspicious deaths, ghosts, shifting realities, weird science, teen issues, family issues, secret organizations and unexplained events in a British town will all, no doubt, come clear in future episodes.

As the story opens, Michael suddenly develops the ability to read a suicidal dog’s intentions and teleport himself a short distance to rescue it. After this remarkable occurrence, he is forcibly inducted into a group called UNexplained Incidents, Cryptic Occurrences, Relative Nontemporal Events by the sinister, inhumanly strong Amadeus Klimt and his hot, surly, butt-kicking assistant Chantelle. Learning that he can alter events by “imagineering” himself into alternate universes, Michael squeaks past multiple murder attempts while stumbling through a nightmarish mystery. This involves moody goth schoolmate Freya and Rafferty, the killed (but not gone, thanks to “cellular memory”) former owner of both the dog and Freya’s transplanted heart. For comic relief, d’Lacey adds a younger but smarter sister to expedite Michael’s relations with the opposite sex. He also chucks in strange revelations about their long-missing father, a luridly icky science lab scene, dragons, unicorns, UFOs (possibly), a melodramatic climax featuring literal cliffhanging and several encounters with dead teens.

No genre trope is left in the basket, making the result more a crazy quilt than a free-standing series opener.