Reviewed by Alicia Glass 

Teen genius Luke Ellis finds himself kidnapped and taken to a place where other kids like him, with extra-sensory abilities, are forced into the training and eventual use of such powers. 

Based on yet another book of the same name by Stephen King, The Institute, both the novel and television series, are very like updated versions of King’s classic hunted-power-child book Firestarter. In Firestarter, little girl Charlie McGee and her father Andy, who both possess mind powers, are hunted by a top-secret military-science-government outfit known as The Shop. The Institute takes this several steps further, with the successful kidnapping of kids who demonstrate mind powers, and depositing them in the already set-up Institute, where they’re forced into what are effectively torture scenarios meant to further unlock their mind powers, and then made to use said newfound powers in service, ‘for the good of your country, and the world’. Make sure your tracker is disabled, and let’s get into this! 

So, unfortunately for Luke Ellis (Joe Freeman), he is a full-on certified genius. His parents really don’t know what to do with him, other than to helplessly encourage wherever Luke wants to study or go to next, as they’re well aware his brains have quite surpassed them both. Not only in smarts, but Luke has begun to haphazardly demonstrate telekinesis, or the ability to move objects with his mind, as well. And after a small but damning demonstration of TK during a pizza dinner with his folks, Luke finds himself waking up to a seriously different reality. 

First to greet Luke as he wanders out of the copy of his bedroom into the echoing institute hallways, lined with strange inspirational posters and little else, is Kalisha (Simone Miller), or just Sha as she also answers to. Sha is a TP, a telepath with the innate ability to read minds, and, as she informs Luke, everyone who comes to the institute is either TK or TP or some variation thereof. Luke is quickly introduced to the others – nervous Iris (Birva Pandya), set to “graduate” soon; arrogant George (Arlen So), who likes to use his tokens for snacks and bragging to cover his fears; and Nicky (Fionn Laird), eldest amongst them known for his smoking, chess game, and endless plotting for escape. 

Next Luke insists on meeting the gatekeepers of the Institute, because calling them jailers would be a little too accurate, in the persons of the twitching Dr. Hendricks (Robert Joy), the wicked head of security Trevor Stackhouse (Julian Richings), and perhaps the most enigmatic of our evil bosses, Ms. Sigsby (Mary-Louise Parker). Tony (Jason Diaz) is the orderly, a really nasty piece of work that drags each kid to his next testing session, always angry at anything less than total cooperation and willing to just beat the snot out of these poor youngsters for any infraction or even none. And then there’s Maureen (Jane Luk), ostensibly the janitor and maid-of-all-work but also, a spy in their midst and maybe, just maybe mind you, an ally when things begin to go all pear-shaped. Which they do rather quickly because all Luke wants, all all the kidnapped kids want, is to get out of here and go home. 

Sigsby and the other I-don’t-think-they’re-real-Doctors explain that where Luke currently is, is called ‘Front Half’, where the taken kids are first introduced to their mission and the other kids, where they endure tests like “shots for dots” and something horrendous they call “the dream box” and in general try very hard to get their mind powers to manifest under their control. After the kids have endured all these things and manifest mind powers to the in-charge trios satisfaction, there’s a very dubious graduation ceremony complete with cake, and the kid in question is sent to something called “Back half”. None of the kids are sure what goes on in Back half, all they know is the kids sent there never return, and though Sigsby claims that after they have done whatever service for their country in Back half and she erases their memory and sends them home, not a single one of them believes her.  Especially not when a new addition to Front half, the tiny but very bright and talented Avery (Viggo Hanvelt), comes in and starts announcing aloud everyones’ true intentions because, hey, he can clearly hear what they’re thinking and has no filter whatsoever. 

Elsewhere in our on-going story is Tim Jamieson (Ben Barnes), newly arrived to a small town somewhere in Maine (of course it is, this is a Stephen King trademark), a former Boston policeman hiding away from a tragedy in his recent past. After accepting a job in town as a “night-knocker”, which is effectively a night watchman without a firearm, who goes around town and checks up on various locations for safety and security, Tim wanders about the town in a kind of drifter-doing-the-right-thing life. After making friends with the local conspiracy streetperson Annie (Mary Walsh), Tim begins to find himself more and more curious about the “hazardous materials plant” with a lot of security and secrecy surrounding it, on the outskirts of town. And of course, nothing would do but to get the local law enforcement lady with whom he might’ve begun a tenuous little romance, Wendy Gullickson (Hannah Galway), involved in his quest for the truth too. 

The Institute has secrets and conspiracies galore, even amongst the staff and gatekeepers, with conflicting orders coming from various sources over what to do have these kids with powers do with them once they reach Back half. Although no-one argues over what to do with the kids after their service is over and an empty staring powerless husk is left. And time is running out, for Luke and the rest of the kids, for Sigsby and Hendricks are defying orders and doing more bad things than usual, Tim and other townsfolk are really beginning to look closely at the high-security location on the town outskirts, and there really is a “scorched-earth” option for this location of the Institute if all the terrible things they’re doing are discovered and brought to light. 

Cheer on Luke and his cohorts as they fight to escape The Institute, on MGM+ channel now!