When I received the opportunity to check out Fate: The Winx Saga on Netflix I was really excited about it. I love stories about magic and fairies and the fact that this show centers around five female leads was a big plus going in. For those not familiar, Fate: The Winx Saga follows a school full of fairies learning about magic while strange and deadly mysteries unfold later forcing them to save the world (predictable but usually satisfying fantasy fare). I plugged in the first episode, ready for whatever adventures lay ahead.

And almost instantly got bored.

Fate: The Winx Saga has committed the almost unpardonable sin of making magic mundane. Sure, we hear that the show’s central location is located in the “Otherworld” but the Otherworld sure looks a heck of a lot like our world. Add in a regular looking school building (with the exception of a cool Stonehenge like circle), regular looking dorm suites, even regular looking cars! Except for the instances of magic (which are admittedly cool when they happen), the school setting of the show feels like any other teen drama set at an elite boarding school. I missed the fantasy clothing, magic animals, heck, even some pointed ears would’ve helped. Everyone looked normal and in a story set in a fantasy world, that’s not a good thing.

And speaking of drama, my God this entire show is one giant cliche. There’s the predictable love triangle, the entitled “mean girl” student who manipulates everyone around her to get whatever she wants, the adorkable one with one moment of awesomeness, and of course the completely out-of-her-depth new to this world student who we’re supposed to be rooting for. I can’t watch regular teen dramas for a reason, and let me tell you adding magic to the mix does NOT make it better. In fact, the scenes with the “mean girl” were so on the nose that I almost got triggered with my own memories of being bullied as a child and a teen (I really hate shows that trigger me like that).

I also have a major problem with whoever wrote the dialogue for this show. The exposition dumps are….okay, and they do a fairly good job with explaining how the elemental magic works in the show, but the teen to teen dialogue is…oh boy, it’s bad, it’s really bad. A lot of it feels so clumsily written, like they had a great idea and very little idea of how to execute it. For instance, the show blurts out a huge twist in the FIRST episode. And when I say huge, I mean this is the kind of twist that should have come halfway through the season or later, not something you find out in the first 30 minutes. And even before you find out, the dialogue leading up to the reveal is so bad that it’s obvious what’s coming.

I admit, I couldn’t finish the first season, if the first few episodes couldn’t win me over, there’s not much the last few episodes could do to change my mind. Fate: The Winx Saga takes a great premise and utterly ruins it with the execution. I wish it had been otherwise, but I am not a fan of this show.

Let me know what you think about Fate: The Winx Saga in the comments below and have a great day!

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