Beyond is the new fantasy series from the American channel Freeform. It is the first of the channel to benefit from the binge-watching method, that is to say that in addition to broadcasting an episode every week, Freeform has already made available to the public the entire first season on its website, 10 episodes. But let's first look at the pilot, broadcast on Monday, January 2, 2017, just to immerse ourselves in the atmosphere…
After twelve years of coma, Holden Matthews (Burkely Duffield) wakes up and discovers himself endowed with strange supernatural powers that soon plunge him into the heart of a plot that is beyond him. Now, Holden must try to understand what has happened to him over the past 12 years, during which his mind seems to have lived a parallel life, try to acclimatize to a world that did not wait for him to evolve, and above all find the keys that will allow him to answer an important question: Why him? It's not easy when you can't trust anyone…
A rather mysterious starting pitch but not necessarily unprecedented. It must be admitted that we do not really know what to expect before starting the viewing of Beyond. 
An umpteenth series for teenagers tinged with fantasy? Or something new, a universe in which we will let ourselves be dragged? The answer is a mixture of both. We are on the Freeform channel, the one that broadcasts The Fosters, Pretty Little Liars or even Shadowhunters. You have to assume the teen side! The beginning of the episode takes us 12 years earlier, to the time when Holden is just a teenager who loves the stars and secretly drinking beer with his friend Kevin. A tough guy story and a chase later (the scene even tends to remind us of the one in the movie E.T. Steven Spielberg or bike chases in Stranger Things!), Holden finds himself in a coma, after having lived an unprecedented experience, where all the elements around him seemed to levitate.
Throughout the episode, we stand alongside Holden to discover what has changed in the last twelve years. His brother, Luke (Jonathan Whitesell, seen in The 100), is now in college, his parents (Romy Rosemond and Michael McGrady) have never forgotten him despite the fact that life has gone on. The episode begins to take an effective turn when Holden first meets a mysterious girl in a store, who writes on his arm to be careful and not to trust anyone.
We discover from this moment that Holden has powers, as during the scene in the scanner, very funny in his fall moreover! Add to that a mysterious group that seeks to recover him and another organization that seeks to protect him and we get enough questions to want to discover the rest!
Of course, Beyond will not revolutionize the genre. But the pilot is effective and makes you want to know more, and we wait to see the relationship of Holden and his brother fleshed out, the one with his former best friend too. We want to know more about this mysterious girl as well as the old man in a coma who seems to communicate via SMS. A lot of things to develop, we must hope that Beyond holds the road on 10 episodes.
In terms of creation, we find Adam Nussdorf, who is known for having been one of the writers of Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, the short spin-off of the ABC series Once Upon a Time. In production, it is almost a veteran that we are dealing with since we find Tim Kring, to whom we owe the series Heroes.
The series also makes us irremediably think of Kyle XY, a series of ABC Family (the former name of Freeform), broadcast from 2006 to 2009, where we discovered a young man without a navel, played by Matt Dallas. Like the latter, we must hope that the writers know where they are going. The channel's binge watching policy can work but can also lead to the series crashing down. We, for our part, just hope that if the series does not have to exceed 10 episodes of its first season, we will have at least some answers, so as not to remain in the dark.
In conclusion, this first episode of Beyond lays the foundations for an interesting mythology. Many questions are asked, and we can only hope to get answers and find out what really happened to Holden during the 12 years of his coma. The mystery is enough to drag us in its wake and the characters are endearing (special mention to Jonathan Whitesell!). The series does not pretend to revolutionize the genre but it offers us a pleasant entertainment and addictive enough that we want to see the sequel…
