As metaphors for one’s tweens and early teens, a superpower that changes your body, often without your control or knowledge, and leaves you questioning who you truly are at any given moment isn’t exactly subtle. But when it comes to chronicling the travails of middle school, perhaps subtlety isn’t the best way to approach the problem anyway. It’s the metaphor Ben (Lucian-River Chauhan) finds himself living as a seventh grader in Me.

At school, he’s the new kid, an easy target for Jason (Brock Duncan), the bully who positively bristles with overcompensation. At home, he’s a visitor trying to become a resident as he and his mom, Elizabeth (Dilshad Vadsaria), move in with his stepdad Phil (Kyle Howard) and older stepsister Max (Abigail Pniowsky). His father is nowhere to be seen and quickly dismissed when mentioned. Max’s mom is a constant presence, even if it is usually just by mention. Then, one morning, Ben wakes up looking like Max’s friend (Jeremiah Friedlander). Like the mutants of Marvel’s X-Men, his superpower has kicked in just as adolescence is gearing up.

That bit might resemble the lives of Cyclops of Jean Grey, but in most other ways, Me feels a lot more like a junior version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the Gen Alpha set. Like Buffy’s Slayer mantel, Ben’s shapeshifting abilities become a gateway to a far stranger and more dangerous world existing just under the surface of his new home. And just like that series, Me plays best when it focuses on the growing pains of adolescence.

As noted above, the quest for self is the central struggle. Still, Ben, Max, and their classmates’ trials and tribulations don’t stop there. If anything, Max’s attempts to navigate her parents’ split, her new home situation, crushes, and mean girls provide better dramatic fodder. Pniowsky may trend a little too capable of usually making the right and kind choice for a 13-year-old, but her performance proves the MVP. She often has to hold her cards close to her chest with the people close to her life while letting the audience in, no easy feat.

Chauhan is no slouch as Ben, but he has the benefit of playing a more expressive and self-centered role. On the other hand, he’s also hamstrung a bit by having to frequently give voice to internal monologues. Too often, his “thoughts” stray into the Sex and the City-style “here’s the lesson” bow wrap-ups that Carrie indulged in.

The adults are well-cast, too, especially Max’s dad. Howard mostly plays Phil as a great dad, the average but unflappable type. However, his moments of frustration and one scene where he’s genuinely unnerving give what could’ve been a flat character some nice depth. Sharif Atkins, a widower whose daughter is, apparently, away at boarding school, has good “I’m barely holding on here” energy as the town’s main cop and Phil’s best friend.

Where the show can’t keep up with its older cousin Buffy is in the town’s mysteries. Without spoiling too much, suffice it to say there’s something larger afoot than just Ben’s shapeshifting. Every time the show moves to those concerns, which is increasingly frequent as the series winds its way through nine episodes, it becomes a less compelling series.

It isn’t the effects, although they’re not what one would call stellar. It’s that Me can’t figure out how to make the mythology as interesting as the mostly human drama. Ben’s powers work as a metaphor for him trying to find out who he is and the kind of person he wants to be. But revelations of a bigger, more mythical world largely don’t attempt to strike any sort of allegorical chord. Instead, the concerns feel rather conventionally: “There are good guys and bad guys. The good guys need Ben’s help.”

That kind of plot can work, but only if the storytelling rises to the occasion. In Me, creator Barry L. Levy seems to have spent all his creative choice on the domestic, the typically benign. That makes that aspect of the show very strong. Unfortunately, it makes the other part, the supernatural and superpowered, suffer in comparison. Audiences shouldn’t feel disappointed when the plot visits the fireworks factory, but this critic certainly did.

Thankfully, even as the powers and conspiracy quotient rise, plenty of adolescent misfires and achievements remain. That keeps things moving and the interactions interesting. If the show receives a second season, making its two halves work better in concert must be the top priority. For a debut, though, Me’s empathetic heart for its characters and the actors’ skill make it well worth a look.

Me checks itself out in AppleTV+’s mirror beginning July 12.

Me Trailer: