The 100 is back on Netflix with its fifth season. I’m not sure what I was expecting when I saw the notification that Netflix had released three episodes of the new season, but damn, was I excited to click.

Let me begin by saying that despite the apparent flaws of this CW series, I am a huge fan of The 100. And in all honesty, I am not a hard sell on post-apocalyptic stories; I watch them all. But the original concept behind The 100 is different. You’re watching people survive and begin again on a new Earth, 97 years after a nuclear holocaust, building settlements, finding food, and building defences, creating a new world, out of what’s grown in place of the old one. Rather than just watching the survivors try to outrun the bad guys for an hour straight.

Season five is here and it’s unfortunately so far, a lot of the same. It’s starting to become clear the show runners are running out of storylines. Each season now, we have a new big bad, with a similar ending. Not what I would call refreshing. It’s stopped trying to be different, and decided to tell the same story a dozen other shows are telling.

In season one we had The Grounders who were dealt with, about as well as you can handle thousands of cavemen. In season two, Clark killed all of the murderous mountain men whose main goal was to bleed the Grounders dry, literally. And in season three Clark and her team, dismantle A.L.I.E and free all of her mind controlled victims. Season four was a little refreshing, with no main villain, and the main conflict stemming from nuclear meltdowns about to kill the planet for a second time.

I was pretty hopeful for a similar departure this year; maybe a look into how Clark and her fellow survivors thrive in a new world, twice decimated by nuclear disasters. So far though, we have had one episode about that, before welcoming the newest of the baddie, cryogenically frozen cons, from spaaaaaaace. And these popsicles don’t seem too keen on sharing the limited green space left on the desert wasteland Earth has become.

Who knows? The previous seasons all struggled with unoriginal big bads, save season four, but made up for it with unique  storylines of friendship and survival. We’re only three episodes into season five of The 100, it could still turn things around.