Watch This: Previews of Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments

Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments starts January 12 on Freeform (AKA ABC Family). It boasts a female lead character. The pilot is going to have to hook me on these very young characters, because the premise of this sci fi series doesn’t seem particularly intriguing from the previews below.

Here’s the plot synopsis: “Clary Fray learns that she is a Shadowhunter, a human-angel hybrid that hunts demons after her mother is abducted by a demon. Clary joins a band of Shadowhunters to save her mother and discovers powers she never knew she had.” The demons include werewolves, vampires and such.

It looks like the series will have at least a couple of women directors and there some women among the writers. The series is based on a series of  The Mortal Instruments books, the first of which is City of Bones. The books were written by Cassandra Clare.

Netflix bought the rights to Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments. Except in the US, episodes will be released to a global audience on a weekly basis for the 13 episodes of the series. The release will be the day following the release in the US. No binge watching, even on Netflix. That’s a new one for Netflix.

Katherine McNamara plays Clary Fray, the lead demon hunter. She has a thick mane of red hair worthy of Connie Britton. Like Buffy and Jessica Jones, she takes to her hero role reluctantly. It’s a story of self discovery, like Lost Girl. With a main character so much like other main characters we have known and loved, the series has promise. I wish the characters were older – in their late 20s at least – but that’s only because I’m so far beyond the target demographic for this series.

Dominic Sherwood plays Jace. Also in the cast are Alberto Rosende, Emeraude Toubia, Matthew Daddario, Harry Shum Jr., Isaiah Mustafa and many others.

Here’s the official trailer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10ACSbdshRc

They also released a 7 minute clip.

Will you give the show a look? I plan to.