Misfits, E4’s offbeat superhero drama, has been a hit with both TV critics and the public. Earlier this year, it edged out Spooks, Being Human and The Street to win the Bafta for Best Drama Series. It’s done well in the ratings, too: the second series, which reached its sofa-shredding climax on Sunday, garnered more than a million viewers an episode – over double what the first episode pulled in when it premiered in November 2009. A third season has already been commissioned, while recent reports suggest that the show might even spawn a US remake.

Yet its success is surprising. Not least because it’s shown on E4, the digital offshoot of Channel 4 known chiefly for its deluge of mindless drivel and pointless repeats – Skins and The Inbetweeners excluded of course. Then there’s its premise, which, to the uninitiated, might sound a tad ropey: a group of teenagers doing community service get caught up in a mysterious lightning storm and voilà, they’re suddenly imbued with superpowers (invisibility, telepathy – that kind of thing). If it sounds like a hybrid of Heroes and Skins that’s because it’s meant to; it’s been marketed that way.

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