Warning: The following contains spoilers for Wolf Pack Episodes 1 and 2.Despite Wolf Pack being announced on the heels of the Teen Wolf movie for Paramount+, the two werewolf-centric projects are very different animals. With both being produced by Teen Wolf show runner Jeff Davis, some believed that Wolf Pack would be a spin-off of MTV’sTeen Wolf series. That, however, is not the case. Though both projects share a lot of similarities, it’s the differences between the two that work in Wolf Pack’s favor.
Wolf Pack is inspired by a series of novels by Edo Van Belkom published in the early 2000s. The books are aimed at a slightly younger audience than the series, and those who have read the novels will find some differences there. The same central premise - of a group of teenage werewolves struggling to fit in - remains the same though. While Teen Wolf the series is initially inspired by the Michael J. Fox movie of the same name, it too ended up being very different from the original.
Why The Wolf Pack Differences Are A Good Thing
It’s inevitable that there are going to be comparisons to Teen Wolf when a show like Wolf Pack begins. There are only so many supernatural dramas that center on teenage werewolves. While werewolves are popular in the supernatural genre in TV and games, many of the shows aimed at young adults over the last few years have centered on vampires or magic users. Teen Wolf has been a standout when it comes to werewolf content.
Teen Wolf has six seasons to build its own mythology and provide its own twist on the idea of werewolves. Every supernatural series or movie provides its own take on the idea. Marvel’s Werewolf By Night, for example, has a different take on the werewolf than something like Teen Wolf or The Vampire Diaries. Wolf Pack will be able to have its own version of werewolf mythology as well, giving the series a chance to put a new spin on the stories the audience might think they already know.
It’s those differences that will help to set Wolf Pack apart from the stories that came before it. Wolf Pack has the chance to build new characters and relationships, surprise the audience with twists on information they thought they knew, and develop its story of a pack in a whole new way.
Wolf Pack’s History Of Fire Provides Different Backstory
Wolf Pack and Teen Wolf both have a significant piece of backstory centering on a fire. In the case of Teen Wolf, a fire nearly destroyed the entire Hale family’s pack of wolves. Only a handful of members of the Hale family survived when their home was set on fire and the werewolves were trapped in the basement. Instead of starting with a fire causing deaths like Teen Wolf, Wolf Pack’s backstory of a fire begins new life.
Luna and Harlan are discovered as infants in the woods by a forest ranger. That forest ranger is one who is out in the woods because of a wildfire. When the story of Wolf Pack picks up in the present day, the siblings are teenagers raised by that same forest ranger, who is missing in another wildfire. Despite the danger posed by the fire, it provides new life again as animals fleeing the blazing wildfire provide cover for a werewolf to bite several teenagers. Those teenagers get whole new life as a result.
Wolf Pack Focuses On A Pack From The Start
One of the interesting aspects of Teen Wolf is that the show provides a slow build to the formation of the McCall Pack. The unconventional pack includes werewolves, a werecoyote, a banshee, a kitsune, and even humans. The pack forms as Scott McCall refuses invitations to be part of other packs and becomes an Alpha wolf in his own right. He maintains that Alpha status in the Teen Wolf movie as well. Building that unconventional pack is a great take on the idea of a wolf pack, but the new series looks to be focusing on a more traditional approach to a werewolf pack, but with its own twist.
In only the first episode of the series Harlan and Luna are drawn to the same place in the woods because of a wolf howling. Blake and Everett, two newly bit teenagers, are drawn to the same place for the same reason. All four of them have glowing eyes and instantly know that they are alike, even if Harlan doesn’t want to trust anyone or admit the truth. The four are already drawn together in a pack whether they really want to be or not.
That idea is vastly different from that of Teen Wolf which sees Scott mostly on his own as he learns about his abilities, but refuses his connection to other wolves completely. Pack dynamics should be a larger part of Wolf Pack than they were in Teen Wolf as a result.
Wolf Pack Has No Expert Werewolf To Lead
Wolf Pack is also interesting in that there’s no wise and experienced werewolf to lead Harlan, Luna, Everett, and Blake in their abilities. No one is giving them advice about their skills or how to improve them. That means the learning curve for the group will be steep. Even though Luna and Harlan have lived their entire lives as werewolves, they don’t know much about how their abilities work, or seemingly, how to focus them. That’s evident in Luna having a better sense of smell than her brother, but him having more advanced hearing than her, and neither being able to stop their senses from overwhelming them.
Even though Scott doesn’t want to join another werewolf’s pack in Teen Wolf, he still has someone to give him advice from the start. Derek Hale knows that Scott is bitten by a werewolf right away, and he seeks him out, wanting him to be his ally, and wanting to teach him. While Scott accepts his lessons, he doesn’t accept Derek as an Alpha. They still have a mentor-mentee relationship that helps Scott find his way. Without that in Wolf Pack, the experiences of the teenagers will be very different moving forward in the series.
While there’s no problem with the similarities that might crop up in Wolf Pack and Teen Wolf, the differences are what will help to make the new werewolf show stand out. New episodes of Wolf Pack are available to stream on Paramount+ every Thursday.