TV Review: Fate-The Winx Saga Season One (spoiler filled review)

Welcome back to Musings of an Arthritic Artist! Today I'm going to be doing a TV show review. This is the second one of these that I have done on my blog.

I'm reviewing Fate: The Winx Saga, the Netflix live-action remake of Winx Club, an animated TV show that came out in 2004. If you haven't watched this show and wish to, I'd highly recommend not reading this. It will be full of spoilers. 

Let's get into the review!

First, let's discuss plot. What is this show exactly about? This show starts with Bloom Peters, a 16-year-old fairy who arrives at Alfea, a school for fairies. Alfea is located in the Otherworld, though Bloom previously lived in the First World (Earth) with her parents. I'll go more in depth with what the plot entails and what I did and didn't like about it, but this is the general premise.

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This show took a lot of creative liberties, many that I'm not a fan of. I'm not saying that remakes and adaptations can't take creative liberties. They can, and most times, it'll leave room for a story that feels the same while also adding new elements. What I am saying is the creative liberty taken should at least make sense. 

There was a lot of liberty taken with Musa's character in particular. The animated Musa was upbeat and spoke her mind. This Musa is more reserved, quiet, and is mostly in her own world. With the changes they made in her abilities, this makes sense. I can understand why Netflix wouldn't necessarily want to make Musa the Fairy of Music like she is in the cartoon, especially since this is geared toward an older audience. Making a fairy of music may seem childish and juvenile, even if you can make her use sound waves as her power. 

Instead she is a mind fairy and can easily interpret emotions, both from other people and nature. She can also manipulate pain through emotion. She is frequently seen with headphones and is always listening to music as a way to block out the emotions she can always feel due to her being an empath.

This liberty makes sense. Other liberties taken, such as with Bloom's character, Aisha's character, and the introduction of Terra, make no sense. I'll begin with the changes of Aisha and Terra before finishing with Bloom, who I liked the least out of all the characters surprisingly, who was actually one of my favorite characters in the original show.

This is the DVD cover of the second season of Winx Club. The only reason I didn't show the cover for season 1 is because Aisha/Layla wasn't introduced until season 2 of the animated show. Notice how there are six fairies. In this show, there are only five, though only four of the fairies from season 2 of the original Winx because Terra is a new character. In the first season of this show, Flora is nonexistent, as is Tecna.

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Let's talk about Aisha. In the original Winx, Layla/Aisha was a princess, while in this version, she is not. She's also more uptight in this remake. I understand how someone would want to follow the rules, but Aisha bordered on annoying because of how uptight she was. To be honest, Aisha didn't really do much. She was just there to provide information, tell on Bloom, and be Bloom's best friend. Quite frankly, I barely remember what she did besides the things I just mentioned.

Now we'll discuss the changes regarding Terra. Initially I thought that Terra was supposed to be Flora, and I was honestly quite upset about this. I loved Flora in the original show, and I'd say that she was my second favorite after Bloom. It was later said that Terra is Flora's cousin and that Paulina Chavez was cast in the role of Flora for season 2, which I actually am excited about because I really want to see Flora. 

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Let's get to Bloom. Where to begin? Her backstory is changed from the original, particularly her parents. In the original show, her parents knew she was special. She was found by her adopted father in a fire where the flames never touched her. In this version, she was switched out soon after her adopted parents' daughter died due to a heart defect. They believe Bloom is their biological daughter and don't know she's different. This isn't a change I was the biggest fan of.

Another thing, moreso involving Bloom's character. One scene stuck out to me in particular and it really annoyed me. In this remake, Bloom has a strained relationship with her mother. She tells Aisha in the first episode that she got angry and nearly burned down the house. Her mother ended up with third-degree burns. I hate this so much. For one, in the original cartoon, Bloom's relationship with her parents is so perfect and caring. In this show, they made the mother be completely unfair to her by taking off the door to her room because she slammed it.

However, this whole thing started because of Bloom and also how the writers made the mom. She argues with her mom before this. Her mother has unfair expectations of her and wants her to do things she doesn't want to. Bloom tells her mom that she doesn't want to be a basic b*tch like she is. Yeah, that's how far Bloom and her mother's argument goes. I was watching the show, and I was so frustrated. 

One of the best parts of the original show is the relationship Bloom has with her parents. I know that teenagers tend to naturally drift apart from their parents a bit when they hit a certain age because they want to be more independent, but this entire show is pretty much endless drama and angst when it comes to the parents of the fairies. 

Bloom and her parents don't get along, Stella and her mom don't get along, which is contrary to Stella's mother in the original Winx. I can't think of a single good mother figure. The original was great about having good parental figures. Not all were good, but most of them were. 

In this version, Bloom's mother is obstinate and can't seem to reconcile with the fact that her daughter can't be perfect, Stella's mother is controlling toward her and is a recurring antagonist in this series, and Musa's mother--who seems to be the only mother who was potentially good--is dead, which is (for once) true to the original source material, only in the original Musa's mother died when she was a child. 

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The nice thing about the original Winx was that while it was juvenile, girly, and cheesy at times, it was timeless. It didn't date itself with references. Bloom was raised in Gardenia, California, but while she was from Earth, it didn't specify what period of time this Earth was. Alfea was a boarding school in Magix. Magix was a planet. 

One of the most annoying things about Fate: The Winx Saga is that it tries too hard to be 'cool' and 'teen.' I'm assuming that the target audience is people who grew up watching the original show, especially because of the TV-MA rating. It's clearly intended for older teens who probably watched this show and are around mine and my sister's ages (18-27), the youngest likely being 15-17 years old. 

This show is laden with references that age it. Some of the things are also so cliche it's not even funny. I hate the trope where every single boarding school has to somehow exist in the United Kingdom. It's never outright said where the school is located, but literally everyone around Bloom has a British accent. 

It's as if the behind the scenes crew wanted to recreate Hogwarts. There's even a scene in the first episode where Bloom meets Aisha and they discuss Harry Potter and sort each other into houses. These references date the show, which wouldn't be a bad thing minus the fact that the original Winx Club didn't do this. 

I don't have a problem with the United Kingdom, nor British actors, but it just feels weird that the only person who doesn't have a British accent is Bloom, who is from Gardenia, California. It's as if the writers wanted to use the 'American girl in British boarding school' trope, but with a magical school located who knows where (Magix in the original show).

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As for other changes that were made, Faragonda has changed into a new character named Farah Dowling, who is the headmistress of Alfea and isn't nearly as knowledgeable as Faragonda. There are also essentially no witches. In the original show, witches were similar to fairies, but were typically their magical opposites. In this show, the only witches mentioned are the Blood Witches, who were humans who drew on sacrifice and death to perform magic.

Additionally, the main teenage antagonist is Beatrix, an air fairy who was originally born in Aster Fell, a village of witches that Rosalind (another main antagonist) destroyed. I'm assuming that she's meant to be inspired by the Trix in the original show. Icy, Darcy, and Stormy, don't exist and instead seem to be inspirations for Beatrix. Beatrix has lightning powers, like Stormy. Riven is also Beatrix's love interest, which is similar to how Darcy had a relationship with Riven in season one of Winx Club. She's also pretty ruthless like Icy.

As of right now, it's unclear whether Beatrix is a fairy or witch due to her being born in Aster Dell. She was raised as a fairy, however I have a feeling that it's going to be revealed that Beatrix is actually a witch in the next season. If she's not a witch, I'm honestly going to be annoyed.

Instead of the Specialists all being male and the Fairies all being female in the original show, Specialists are male and female as are fairies. This is one of the few changes I had no problem with and actually welcomed warmly. 

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Overall, I didn't really enjoy Fate: The Winx Saga much. The first season at least. I was not a fan of it. Some of it was interesting, but most was not. I rate this show 3 out of 5 stars. The only reason why it's a 3 and not a 2 is because I genuinely liked Musa and ship her and Sam. I do intend to watch season 2 when it's released, and I'm excited to see what they do with Flora. I also want them to go into the whole Daphne plot, as that was a key component of the original series.

That's it for this review! I hope you enjoyed it! 

Until next time, 

Lexi K🖌