Noughts + Crosses

Compelling actors, smart and gorgeous costume and set design, and an intriguing alternative-history premise combine in a series viewers will find difficult to stop watching once it's taken hold. The Romeo and Juliet-esque love story at the center of Noughts + Crosses' action is a little underbaked -- Sephy and Callum just don't have that much contact before they fall in the kind of love that demands sacrifice -- but it's easy to forgive that when the show surrounding them is so cool. One of the most brilliant things about Noughts + Crosses is how it communicates the differences between Albion and real-world England: a statue of a beautiful Black woman commands Albion's skyline; powerful Crosses wear vibrant African prints; coils, braids, and locks are the height of diplomatic sophistication. Meanwhile, the less-valued status of the Noughts is elegantly displayed in their costumes and styling: they wear cheap knockoffs of the African fabrics, and their braids hang unfashionably limp.

The micro-aggressions leveled against Callum and his fellow light-skinned Albion citizens are pointed and affecting, too. When Callum cuts his hand at a party, the bandage offered him is dark brown. A newspaper headline characterizes an incident of official brutality as "Police act against Nought thugs," illustrating the story with a picture of a pale young man with a glare and a hoodie. Artwork in museums, homes, and public places only depict Crosses. Cross characters blithely discuss everything from the intelligence of Noughts to their sex lives, secure in the knowledge that they'll face little reprisal. As Noughts + Crosses' plot ramps up into an insurrection, it's easy to see that this is a parable for our times, one that's entirely absorbing -- but, hopes the viewer, not actually prescient.