There is a bunch of "Agents" flying round the globe in a plane doing "missions". Secret Organisations, Alien Artifacts, superpowers. Somehow the X Files popped up in my head: mysterious happenings are investigated, aliens exist and a bunch of SciFi fantasies also come true. Solid entertainment. Not a Science Fiction nor Superhero story though but a mystery series. (Errata: this was mid 1st season - it takes a while for the common SF "superpower" elements to kick in yet they eventually do)

True Science Fiction? Jules Verne makes an awful read mostly: a voyage to the moon, an adventure 20000 leagues under the sea - described in minuscule details. In so many details in fact that the story reads like a highly technical report at times. If you read Philipp K Dick - the father of so many SF movies - you'll find simple ideas at the core of many stories. Nothing new actually - seeing the future for instance is an ancient idea. What makes it special is the world around these phenomena: it is actually thought through. How would the world react to someone having such abilities? How do "normal people" or "the society" interact with that? To put it in a nutshell: SF thinks things through. It takes a dream and takes it as serious as it gets, escalating it until a whole new world comes into view.

This series however states that "the events of New York" (aka the movie) have changed the world yet we never see how normal life has changed. It's but a bunch of secret organizations and a handful of gifted individuals that popped up while the whole world of everyday life apparently remained entirely familiar and unchanged. After an alien invasion. Yeah, sure... That's actually more "fantastic" than any "alien artifact" or "superpower" could ever be. It's down to the root conservative in the extreme. That's not SF at all. There is no vision of a different world but merely a bunch of "mysterious phenomena". Thus it is a mediocre series with cheesy superpower SF elements. Mostly good if mindless entertainment without any hint of philosophical reflection (as commonly found in SF). It could do with a darker atmosphere, the characters are too clean and stereotypical yet I really enjoyed watching it so far.