"Bureau of Magical Things": Dumb Title, Cute Teencom

 

Is it possible to have a school of magic after Hogwarts, or will any attempt inevitably be compared and criticized?  Let's find out with the Australian teencom with the rather clunky name The Bureau of Magical Things.

Scene 1: Brisbane, night.  A teenage girl goes on a late night run (all by herself?  in America she would be risking her life).  While running through Captain Burke Park on Kangaroo Point, she sees a book floating in the air.  Instead of getting the heck out of there, she approaches and touches it, and gets zapped into unconsciousness.

Scene 2:  Jogger awakens in her room with a nervous, flibbertigibit girl in a nightgown standing over her bed.  She explains that she found Jogger unconscious in the park and brought her home.  Then she sprouts wings and vanishes.  

Scene 3: 24 hours earlier, at River City High ("we got trouble, right here in River City").  .  Jogger -- Kyra -- playing basketball.  Her team loses.  Eyeglassed Peter (Jamie Carter, top photo) tries to cheer her up.  She responds by insulting him. Harsh!  

Meanwhile, downtown, Mr. Bulge...um, I mean Mr. Maxwell (Christopher Sommers)...closes his bookshop and walks through the wall to a magical library, where he orders a ladder to fetch him some books.  Then he catches a nonbinary person trying to steal a book.  He gives them the job of cleaning the library. 

Scene 4:  In the park, Eyeglassed Peter tries to give basketball advice to Kyra and her friend Mathilde.  They point out that he believes in UFOS, so his opinions are worthless. 

They stop for smoothies and look for a free table.  Androgynous Guy -- Darra (Julien Cullen. below) says he was just leaving, so they can have his.  He runs away and zaps to the magical library.

Nonbinary person asks why he missed dinner last night.  He went to a goblin party: "Those dudes sure love to dance!"  So Androgynous Guy has been dating goblins?  

Lily is still missing.  She went on a tooth run last night, so she's probably sleeping in.  So Underwear Girl is a tooth fairy.  She comes running in, and the class begins, with Mr. Bulge as the teacher.  They have a big test coming up.  

Scene 5:  Kyra in her room, playing the guitar and singing "What if you were the one for me?" while the camera pans to the photos on her wall, mostly of her hugging Mathilde.  Wait -- is Kyra gay? Also her parents and various trophies -- big overachiever here! 

Whoops, smoke alarm.  Dad burned dinner again!   Besides, it was a week old --  Kyra will have to heat up a frozen pizza instead. I get it -- Mom has died, and macho Dad is no good at feminine-coded things.  

Meanwhile, Lily the Tooth Fairy is at the magical library, practicing her conjuring, when Nonbinary Person -- Imogen (Elizabeth Cullen) -- sneaks in, steals the book, and zaps to Captain Burke Park in downtown Brisbane, just off the Story Bridge.  Lily follows.  They magically fight over the book, just as Kyra comes jogging by.  She can't see them, just the book hovering in mid-air.  So she approaches -- zap!

Scene 6:  The next morning.  Dad brings Kyra breakfast in bed (gee, I never got that, unless I was sick).  She's late for her Saturday dog-walking job.  

Cut to Kyra walking some dogs through Captain Burke Park.  Suddenly she sees Androgynous Guy from yesterday, and gapes, astonished -- he's got pointy ears.  He's astonished, too -- how can she see me?  -- and runs away.  She pauses at the spot where she saw the floating book, and finds scorch marks on the ground.  It wasn't a dream.

Suddenly she overhears the dogs talking to each other, mind-to-mind.  They are astonished -- how can a human hear our thoughts?

Eyeglassed Peter shows up.  She tells him about hearing the dogs.  He thinks that she is making fun of him, and leaves.  

Scene 7: At the magical library, Imogen returns the stolen book (lame explanation for the theft: she needed it to cheat on the upcoming test).  Lily the Tooth Fairy confronts her: because of your irresponsibility, a human girl saw us.  "That's impossible! Humans can't see us unless we want them to."  "Obviously we did something to her, and we have to fix it!"

Scene 8: Peter goes to the bookshop to deliver a pastry to Mr. Bulge.  It's payment for a comic book he ordered.  (Funny, most small businessmen want their payment in money.)

Cut to Imogen and Lily arguing, then fighting.  A magic beam blasts through to the bookstore, and Peter sees it!  Mr. Bulge makes a lame excuse, shoves him out the door, and confronts the students.  They cover.  

 

They are an elf and a fairy, respectively, and the two species generally don't get along. Elves are dark, brooding, and gender-atypical, while fairies are light, frothy, and girly.

 But they have to work together to erase Kyra's memory

Scene 9:  In her room, Kyra notices that she can levitate objects!  Lily the Tooth Fairy and Imogen appear and explain: There are magical beings all around us, keeping us safe (um...global warming, the COVD pandemic,  white nationalist extremism... they're doing a rather poor job of it!)  But humans can't know that they exist, so they're going to erase her memories.  They advance menacingly and zap her with fairy dust.

It doesn't work!  Kyra can still see them!  She absorbed some magic when she touched the book, and now she has powers of her own.  She accidentally zaps herself to a snowy mountaintop.  The end.

Beefcake:  Some of the guys are cute.  Mr. Bulge is very noticeable in one scene, but not in the others.

Other Sights: Lots of exteriors in Brisbane.

Heterosexism: No one expresses heterosexual interest, except maybe the double-taking between Kyra and Androgynous Guy Darra.

Gay Characters:  Kyra singing "Are you the one?" to Mathilde, and Hot Guy Darra dancing with goblin dudes?  I imagine that those are just coincidences, and the two will hook up.

Story Arcs: The book theft was far less intriguing than I anticipated.  There doesn't seem to be any ongoing mystery to solve, or at least none was introduced in the first episode.

Will I Keep Watching:  Just to see if Darra and Kyra hook up with each other.