“The Boys” are back in town. Well, almost, says “Streaming” columnist NICK OVERALL. 

THE popular Amazon Prime Video series, “The Boys”, about superheroes gone bad hasn’t returned just yet, but its highly anticipated new spin-off series has just landed.

“Gen V” follows an all-new generation of young people who find themselves with a sweeping set of superpowers.

These powers come from “Compound V”, a drug concocted in the lab of evil corporation “Vought” and which is tested on this coterie of college-age students.

But unlike the caped crusaders splattered throughout Disney Plus and Netflix, many of the so-called heroes of “Gen V”  don’t use their abilities for good.

These hormonal, hyper-competitive bad samaritans run amok with their new found powers, quickly discovering the line between good and evil isn’t as clear cut as their younger selves might have thought.

Like “The Boys” that inspired it, “Gen V” holds nothing back in its satirical takedown of pop culture and the modern obsession with superheroes.

The show has an ardent disinterest in the idea of people using super abilities for good. Instead, it wants to examine what people would really do if granted power beyond their wildest imaginings.

Most of those things just so happen to be way too explicit to put in print. This franchise wants to shock its audience, with showrunner Eric Kripke (the man also behind noughties TV hit “Supernatural”) telling his writers to hold nothing back.

In an interview with “Vanity Fair”, Kripke’s goal is more illuminated.

“Marvel’s real, they’ve taken over the world. My mom, who doesn’t watch superhero movies, completely understands that superheroes are the top of every box office list, and they’re all over television and have completely hijacked pop culture,” he said.

“Our show is the real world in every single way, with the one difference that the superheroes that everyone is worshiping happened to be real.”

The show certainly has a lot of shocks but they also have a lot of value. It wants to confront how frightening people in the real world can be, and it does it through a pitch-black comedic lens.

While for many streamers out there superhero fatigue has set in, “The Boys” and its new spin-off “Gen V” offer a refreshingly unrestrained and unhinged take down of the popular sub-genre that inspired it.

No pulled punches here.

TURNING to some homegrown content, streaming service Stan has just dropped its new series “Caught” (stylised as “CAUGH*T) which aims to find the funny side of geopolitical conflict.

This one follows an ensemble of Australian soldiers who are sent on a mission in a fictional war-torn country, only to be captured by freedom fighters.

In order to escape with their lives the rag tag quartet hatch a plan to make a hostage video that goes viral, turning themselves into internet celebrities with hopes that the Australian people will demand the government do everything possible to bring them home.

The first season has just started streaming and is filled with acting talent, including an appearance from Sean Penn.

Fingers crossed this satire taking aim at the age of social media can hit its target.

STAYING on Aussie productions, Delta Goodrem has returned to movie acting for the first time in almost 20 years this week with the arrival of Netflix’s original film “Love Is In The Air”.

In it Delta plays Dana, a fiercely independent seaplane pilot who lives out her dream job of flying over the tropics.

But things get turbulent when she’s visited by and subsequently falls for William (Joshua Sasse), a man sent from corporate to ground her operation as the company she flies for looks to sell.

A corny and sentimental affair, the film contains its occasional moments of charm but they are certainly few and far between in this 88-minute romp.

Personally, “Love Is In The Air” had me constantly wondering about when it was time to disembark.