I didn’t realize until I already started watching Hulu’s ‘Looking for Alaska’ that it stars Charlie Plummer. Plummer was excellent in last year’s ‘Lean On Pete’ and I have had my eye on him ever since. So it was great pleasure to see him land in this series. And based on the first episode which I watched, he is just one of the assets of the show.

Created by Josh Schwartz and Jessica Savage (they did ‘O.C’) this looks like it’s not just another teen drama. Plummer stars as Miles, a teen who asks to go away to boarding school to look for the ‘great perhaps.’ The term is coined from poet Francois Rabelais’ last words – Miles is a collector of them – he voraciously reads biographies to learn the last words famous people say before they die. (Rabelais’ was ‘I go to see a great perhaps’) Once he arrives at his school, he connects with his roommate Colonel and Alaska, a young girl he instantly falls for. So goodie, we get a coming of age story with unrequited love – my favorite genre of young people’s stories. By the end of the first episode, we see him trying to be Switzerland in class war, at the same time starting to nurse his newfound feelings. It’s going to be a bumpy but (I suspect) meaningful ride.