Steven Gould’s 2013 thriller Impulse has become a series on Youtube Premium—and you can binge the whole thing today! Henry, a 16-year-old girl who’s finding it hard to fit into her new town of Reston, New York. When her date with another student, Clay, abruptly turns violent, she wakes to a terrifying new reality: her golden boy classmate is in a coma, and she’s suddenly having chronic inexplicable seizures…that lead to teleportation.
The series’ ten hour-long episodes follow Henry’s struggle to understand and control her powers, and deal with the chaos surrounding Clay’s injuries. As her classmates become increasingly suspicious of the new girl in town, the police launch an investigation into that night—for Clay’s father, the night his son went into a coma; for Henry, the night she fought off an attempted rape.
As the town rallies around Clay, they only become more hostile toward a “troubled” girl, and soon she’s fighting not only to come to terms with the assault and her new powers, but to stay ahead of those who want vengeance.
The show stars Maddie Hasson as Henry, and Missi Pyle (Galaxy Quest! The Tick! Pushing Daisies!) as Henry’s mom. The show is being executive produced by Lauren LeFranc, who is also showrunning, with Live. Die. Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow director Doug Liman executive producing as well. It’s not Liman’s first time adapting a Steven Gould novel—he previously directed Jumper, a 2008 film featuring Hayden Christensen as a boy whose powers of teleportation are similarly triggered by trauma, and who must then use his abilities to escape his abusive father and evade a secret religious society. While Impulse can be seen as a spiritual sequel, it isn’t connected to Jumper, instead taking full advantage of its YouTube platform to explore dark themes without softening raw emotion in the manner of a traditional TV network.
Head over to Youtube Premium to watch the entire, provocative series premiering later today.
