“The Shock of the New” is episode one of season one of Mutant X.
This more imaginatively named pilot begins with a news service called Proxy Blue speaking about a teenage girl falling six stories and walking away and a man in flames with no signs of burns as a woman is fleeing some pursuing men in a club. The woman bumps into a man and asks him to help her; he gets a glimpse of fear from her it seems. She leaves and is running down the centre of a street, pursued by a car (perhaps run places cars can’t drive?) when another man grabs her and pulls her out of the way of the car. Instead of the car hitting him, though, he fades out. Then a woman drops down from above and lands on the car’s roof.
The two newcomers fight the men from the car and another two pursuers. The man who faded out to stop the car hitting him also becomes bulletproof. protecting the woman who was running. All four pursuers are taken down easily. An older man approaches and speaks to the running woman by name, Emma, and tells her there’s no need to run any more. She’s among friends. Photos are taken of the pursuers and, in an advanced-looking plane, the younger man is told by the older one to upload them to the Sanctuary database. The older man introduces himself as Adam and that this is Mutant X.
Adam explains that the pursuers were from the security wing of Genomex, a biotech firm that is actually a branch of U.S. intelligence. Adam uses something on Emma that prevents her from seeing, as they fly through the side of a mountain. He removes the device once they are inside. Adam says to Emma that she has a telempathic gift; she can sense feelings in others and influence them. Emma claims that she doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Adam says that those with powers are all children of Genomex. A secret human genetics programme had unforeseen consequences. Emma insists she doesn’t have powers.
Adam asks if Emma is aware of the odd stories. Yes, but she never believed them. Adam says that most are not true, but some are. There are perhaps a thousand children of Genomex, some who know what they are, some terrified. Adam isn’t one of them; he was the chief biogeneticist of Genomex.
Elsewhere, a man is seemingly putting new skin onto his face as the events are recounted to him by another. The second man says that their agents are new; the first says they have to get better. He asks the second man, Thorn, to check his appearance, and Thorne tells the first, Eckhart, that he is good to go.
Emma is being tested by Adam, but she still insists that she doesn’t have powers. She isn’t a freak; not a statement that pleases the other two, Jesse and Shalimar. The man Emma bumped into in the club, Brennan, is meeting with two friends about a job the next day. Evidently, he’s going to be important.
Eckhart speaks to another man, Dr. Paul Breedlove (interestingly, in a show about mutants, the actor who plays Breedlove, Cedric Smith, has voiced Professor X in the past). Dr Breedlove is less bothered about the events than Eckhart. He suggests Eckhart is holding Adam responsible for the collapse of his immune system. Breedlove says Eckhart is too hard; Eckhart thinks Breedlove is too easy, which is how Adam stole the database. A database that Breedlove has nearly reconstructed. Breedlove is going to go public to make amends for the horrific mistakes they made. This does not make Eckhart happy.
Brennan, meanwhile, is stealing a Ferrari. He has powers too, and one of his friends watches. Brennan returns as his friends arrive. One mentions the amount they would get for the Ferrari at a chop shop. Apparently they have something else to do. The car’s opener, Carter, approaches. It seems they are going to rob a bank for him.
Emma is still insisting she hasn’t got any powers, so Adam is going to get her out of town. They head to a bookshop, where there is a telepath called Ruby and a secret room where two of the children of Genomex – New Mutants, as Adam calls them – are working. One thinks that Emma’s power is the power of denial. If Emma doesn’t want to leave, the people from last night will try again.
Eckhart, no surprise, dislikes Breedlove’s idea to the extent that he has Thorne kill him before he can go public. It seems Thorne also has powers. There’s also the question of Emma and Brennan; are they going to join Mutant X? It seems highly likely.
There’s a bit of an overuse of bullet time in this episode, accompanied by electronic music. Hopefully, that will get toned down.