Prime Video<\/a>\u2019s Paper Girls, thanks to an incredible ensemble cast of relative newcomers, is that rare and welcome surprise: a show about children made for grown-ups. With no shortage of excitement, thrills and big-ticket sci-fi moments \u2014 gigantic mecha-robot fights, tame dinosaurs, apocalyptic time-rifts open in the sky \u2014 the show manages to balance these whizz-bang scenes with rich and fulsome character development that would be at home in any top-tier drama.<\/span><\/p> Set (at least initially) in 1988 in the small hours after Halloween, Paper Girls introduces us to four newspaper deliverers \u2014 Mac, KJ, Tiffany and Erin, the \u201cnew girl\u201d who acts as our guide to small-town Stony Stream, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio.<\/span><\/p>\nThe four aren\u2019t friends \u2013 at least not at the beginning. They\u2019re from different parts of town, go to different schools, have different backgrounds. They\u2019re thrown together through necessity, travelling together for safety on \u201cHell Day\u201d, when the dregs of drunken Halloween revellers are still on the streets and can pose a real danger to a lone 12-year-old girl.<\/span><\/p>\nThe four girls are well-drawn from the off. Mac (Sofia Rosinsky) is the blue-collar, proto-grunge, smart-mouth kid, KJ (Fina Strazza) the well-to-do Jewish girl, Tiffany (Camryn Jones) the ambitious, clever science nerd, and Erin (Riley Lai Nelet) something of a cypher, the one who hangs back initially as the others\u2019 personalities blossom.<\/span><\/p>\nThen, they\u2019re quickly thrown into the meat of the story \u2014 the sky turns an ominous shade of purple, their town seems suddenly eerily deserted and not quite right, and the girls find they\u2019ve unwittingly stumbled into a skirmish in a long-running time-war between two factions: the Old Watch, committed to preserving the integrity of timelines at any cost, and the STF, a ragtag rebellion underground that is fighting to overthrow the hardline policing of time travel.<\/span><\/p>\n Fina Strazza (KJ Brandman), Sofia Rosinsky (Mac Coyle), Riley Lai Nelet (Erin Tieng) and Camryn Jones (Tiffany Quilkin)<\/span><\/figcaption> Amazon Prime Video<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n By accident, the four girls get themselves transported forward in time, along with two members of the STF, to 2019 \u2014 and are marked for punishment by the Old Watch, whose unwavering dedication to their cause means only one outcome: a death sentence.<\/span><\/p>\nFrom this point, you might be expecting a rambunctious time-travel caper with shades of Back to the Future where the girls try to evade the Old Watch \u2014 in the form of American Horror Story\u2019s Adina Porter as the Prioress \u2014 and fight to get back to 1988, meeting their older selves and relatives along the way. But think again.<\/span><\/p>\nInstead, alongside the sci-fi set pieces there are long scenes of interaction between the girls, fleshing out their characters. Even more intriguingly, the show also investigates the dynamics between their younger and older selves \u2013 principally, in the opening episodes, focusing on Erin and her 40-something self (played by Ali Wong).<\/span><\/p>\nThe time-travel questions Paper Girls posits aren\u2019t the usual ones \u2014 \u2018What if you went back in time and killed Hitler?\u2019, \u2018What if you accidentally ran over your great-grandfather on his way to his first date with your great-grandmother?\u2019, \u2018What if you stepped on a butterfly in prehistoric times?\u2019 <\/span><\/p>\nNo, Paper Girls asks what we really want to know as kids: What will I be like when I\u2019m older?<\/span><\/p>\n Riley Lai Nelet and Ali Wong as child and adult Erin in Paper Girls<\/span><\/figcaption> Amazon Prime Video<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n The dynamic between Erin and her older self, and then the other girls and their future counterparts as the series progresses, is the beating heart of Paper Girls. And happily, given this prominence, these interactions are utterly compelling and believable, thanks to the absolutely top-drawer performances of all four principal characters. <\/span><\/p>\nThe production team reportedly fought hard against suggestions of ageing up the younger characters, (presumably in a bid by Amazon to capture the later-teen market, or to have one or more big-name actors in the roles), and I\u2019m glad they stood their ground. The acting of the young cast is natural and honest, and there\u2019s a highly-believable rawness to all of the performances.<\/span><\/p>\nBehind-the-scenes, Paper Girls is adapted from a comic book written by Brian K Vaughan and drawn by Cliff Chiang (who are both executive producers on the show), and w<\/span>hile the series perfectly captures the tone, spirit and story of the comic, it\u2019s fully and satisfyingly its own thing.<\/span><\/p>\nIn a way, Paper Girls is the perfect Generation X parable. These kids aren\u2019t whisked off to Narnia or Oz to take part in a glorious adventure and save the world. They\u2019re collateral damage in a war that\u2019s not their concern, and that they don\u2019t want any part of. They just want to get home.<\/span><\/p>\n
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