Taking a scroll through new titles on Paramount+ we stumbled across CW's Tom Swift. The titular character is a gay, black billionaire spaceship inventor. Sounds a bit sci-fi. We pressed play.

It quickly became apparent why this series hadn't shown up on our sci-fi radar. Tom Swift is soap opera with some extremely light sci-fi dressing.

Not having watched a lot of soap we don't consider ourselves excellent judges of that genre but we wouldn't call it excellent.

Talking to TV Line, star Tian Richards says:

The original Tom Swift was great for his time and what he represented. At the time, that was the face of young boys, All-American kids full of possibilities. But in 2021, that can look so different. It can look like someone like me — a Black guy who is chocolate, who is queer, who is all those things that we’re told aren’t the normal or the status quo.

If I had an opportunity to see someone like this exist when I was younger, just think of how much sooner I would have felt [more confident] in my skin and welcomed by the world. I had representation here and there, but it was usually a secondary character, or you felt like they were being stereotyped. Tom gets to exist in all of his beauty and pride. He gets to grow up in a family with a legacy, to have endless possibilities in education and tech and inventing. He gets to realize himself for himself, and that’s beautiful for anyone to see.

It is interesting to see a gay, black main character in a series like this but we're not sure that they've completely avoided stereotypes.

The costume designer got your boy in all the best drip. I’m talking Dior, Alexander McQueen. I don’t want to be the guy who just names off a bunch of labels, but Tom is always clean. An outfit for every occasion, trust and believe. But don’t get it twisted — he’s ready to get down and dirty.

We can't disagree here. He is immaculately dressed.

We’re going to dive into so many sectors of identity. We’re going to talk about Blackness — and a different kind of Blackness than we’re used to seeing, which is the Black elite, the 1 percent, the billionaires. We’re also going to talk about a queer boy’s journey into becoming a queer man. Not only self-acceptance, but acceptance as a whole, having the community and people around you.

In the pilot episode we don't see universal acceptance of his sexuality and his journey seems to go backwards.

His first scene has him missing a media presentation and his father finding him in a room of their family mansion, working shirtless.

Then his father gives him a hard time about his "sensitivity".

Tom responds with:

I'm the one who found a meteorite and turned it into the fuel that will get you to outer space. My sensitive ass and tailored pants are the reason you can even go on this journey at all.

This sounds like a healthy, self-accepting response.

Daddy tells him to "be a man".

Then daddy flies away to Saturn. Seemingly dies. But actually needs rescuing, by Tom.

Daddy's "be a man" message is repeated by others usually wanting Tom to do something for them.

Which he ultimately does.

But then "like a man" he announces that he's going to take control of the company.

Again from Tian Richards:

We also don’t shy away from the STEM world. You’ll see all the amazing gadgets and science, so it’ll also be deeply informative. You want to see the action along with the representation, and we tackle both things head on.

There are technology elements but many are unbelievable.

Being a sci-fi fan our bar for scientific realism in entertainment may be higher than the average viewer's but you definitely couldn't legitimately describe this show as scientifically deeply informative.

It presently sports a 2.5 IMDb.com rating and a 25% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, with no critic score courtesy of insufficient reviews.

Of potential interest to Star Trek fans, The Next Generation's LeVar Burton voices an AI called Barclay, though we must stress that this is soap opera rather than sci-fi.

The first three episodes of Tom Swift are available now on Paramount+ with the remaining releasing weekly'ish.

[ Main Image: Tom Swift. Credit: Paramount via IMDb.com. ]

References

IMDB.com. Tom Swift. (viewed June 17, 2022)

Rotten Tomatoes. Tom Swift: Season 1. (viewed June 17, 2022)

Swift, Andy (May 12, 2022). Nancy Drew's Tian Richards Is the Tom Swift We Need in 2021: 'I'm Here, I'm Queer and I'm Going to Get S–t Done'. TV Line.

The CW Network (June 2, 2022). Tom Swift | Who | Season Trailer | The CW. YouTube.

TV Show Transcripts (May 31, 2022). Tom Swift S1E01: ...And the Liftoff to Saturn.

Wikipedia. Tom Swift (TV series). (viewed June 17, 2022)