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| The Umbrella Academy - Now on Netflix |
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| The Sound of Music - circa 1965 |
Spoiler Alert
Season 1 of The Umbrella Academy is great. It features seven gifted children growing up in an exquisitely beautiful house. The children don’t have a mother. They’re being raised by an emotionally distant tyrant of a father who addresses them by serial number rather than by name.
The father is obsessed with the coming apocalypse. He has foreseen this terrible event by virtue of his unique insight. His only agenda is to forge his children into instruments of war who can prevent this apocalypse.
Through many adventures the children discover themselves, each other, and even learn to understand their father. They realise that their destiny is to prevent the apocalypse.
At the end of Season 1, they don’t quite succeed. They can’t stop the apocalypse. But they do escape from it. They live to fight another apocalypse on another day. Which, doubtless, will be the story of Season 2.
I was haunted by a sense of déjà vu through Season 1. I’d seen this story before. Until finally the penny popped – The Umbrella Academy is The Sound of Music, with the children rather than Maria as the central characters.
- Seven gifted children, check.
- Super-wealthy background, check.
- Distant tyrannical father, check.
- Distant tyrannical father, check.
- Looming apocalypse (the rise of Nazi Germany), check.
- Betrayal from within (Rolf the Nazi Postman), check
- Narrow but defiant escape from the apocalypse (Climb every mountain…), check.
The parallel is not perfect. By its logic, Maria would be a programmable robot, which is a bit harsh.
But the parallel also throws in relief what The Sound of Music didn’t show. Were the children really supposed to be pretty props singing along with Maria? What was it like to be Louisa? Or Brigitta? Did Friedrich ever hate his emotionally absent father? There is room for some creative reinterpretation...
- Betrayal from within (Rolf the Nazi Postman), check
- Narrow but defiant escape from the apocalypse (Climb every mountain…), check.
The parallel is not perfect. By its logic, Maria would be a programmable robot, which is a bit harsh.
But the parallel also throws in relief what The Sound of Music didn’t show. Were the children really supposed to be pretty props singing along with Maria? What was it like to be Louisa? Or Brigitta? Did Friedrich ever hate his emotionally absent father? There is room for some creative reinterpretation...
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| The Von Trapp Family Singers |
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| The Hargreeves Family Crimefighters |
