TV Review - The Cape

[shadowkat]

Have today off, which I'm quite happy about. Leaving around 2pm to look at flats again with realtor.
It's cold, it's gloomy, the sky has this dull yellow-grayish light, reminding me once again why I dislike January.

Just finished watching the new mid-season show The Cape - which has promise, but isn't quite there yet. It feels too much like too many other superhero series that I've watched recently to hold my interest. Had to keep rewinding, because I kept wandering off to do other things during it - surf the web, make lunch, knit, untangle yarn, putter. In short - it has a few intriguing ideas, but the execution is sorely lacking. Ah execution, very important, or so I'm learning. Been having that problem with a lot of things lately - great idea, really bad execution.

Simple enough plot-structure, unlike Heroes, which had a complicated plot-structure. Cop gets framed, is believed to be dead, family thinks he was a dirty cop and dead - he takes on a new identity to fight to a)clear his name, b) defeat the guy who framed him and c) clean up his city (some fictional place in the US). He falls in with a bunch of carnival folk who rob banks as a sideline. Luckily all the banks are run by the villain, Chess, so it's not that big a deal morally speaking to rob them. Chess is the big bad corporate honcho who has taken over town and privatized the police force. Yes, it's another libertarian fantasy/nightmare piece about the evils of lobbyist supported centralized government, which most likely means it won't have much appeal outside the US of A.

He takes on the identity of The Cape (which everyone jokes about, including him), and is helped by a girl named Orwell (who I'm willing to bet is Chess' daughter - because that's usually the case in these sorts of set-ups). With an ex-illusionist and head carnival broker named Max - who acts as his Mentor. (This makes me want to rent HBO's series Carnival, all of a sudden.)

What is interesting about the story is the carnival setting and his interactions with the carnival people. What is yawn-worthy is the set-up. But since this is only the pilot, and let's face out all super-hero origin tales tend to be a bit cliche anyhow...we could move past this soon and move deeper into the carnival world. Plus, Mrs. Faraday, his wife, has taken on the job of Public Defender - hoping to defend folks like her husband. This means she's not just going to sit around moping or be forgotten, or get involved with the villain right off the bat - like they usually do in these things.
The hero decides to visit his son as The Cape - so now his kid believes that the fictional super-hero they've been reading about is real and is driving his mother batty, hanging out on fire-escapes late at night watching for him. Way to go Dad.

The villain is mildly interesting - he falls under the brainaic category as opposed to the brawn category. Although he has brawns working for him.

Outside of that? It's okay. Nice atmospheric bits here and there. Some nice special effects. A bit cheesy, but all these things are. Works hard, like Heroes before it, to stick to the graphic novel format, complete with chapter headings. But not overly memorable.

I'll most likely give it a few more episodes, before I decide to keep or kick the thing to the curb.
Probably not a good sign that I'm finding No Ordinary Family more entertaining.

Rather snarky mood this weekend for some reason, I blame the weather. ;-)

Comments

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

I really liked all the actors (bad guys as well as good guys), so that will keep me coming back. But I do agree that they need to step up the plot quite a bit... a typical origin story beginning doesn't put me off because it grounds it clearly in the comic book genre, but they will need to make the story more compelling if it is to distinguish itself.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Agreed. The actors are definitely appealing - particularly the leads. It's the writing that needs to be stepped up a notch.

[rahirah]

I'm trying to think of any stories that could be classified as anti-libertarian-nightmare without falling into the opposite tack of glorifying the Ubermensch. The only one that comes to mine is David Brin's The Mailman (which really deserves to have a good movie made of it.)

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

True. The only two I could think of, ironically enough, were Ayn Rand's the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged...which I'm guessing Randians would probably crucify me for suggesting. I tend to be fairly individualistic in my leanings - generally speaking, but Rand's stuff (outside of Anthem) is basically to libertarians what Orwell's novel Animal Farm is to socialism.

[rahirah]

Really? The only Rand I've ever read was Anthem (I think - is that the future dystopian one?) but from summaries I've read of the other stuff it sounded to me as though she intended her novels to be very pro-individual. Of course, when I read the summaries I thought all the characters were repellent and the philosophy they espoused even more so, so in practice, they work better for me as a treatise on how appalling individualism is when taken to that extreme. But I never got the impression that she meant her work as that kind of critique in the same way Orwell did.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I wrote that wrong. Clarification: I should have stated "unintentionally" like Orwell's Animal Farm. I think Ayn Rand is turning over in her grave in righteous indignation at the mere idea that Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged could be seen as anything other than a righteous homage and justification for libertarianism and objectivism. When in reality, they feel more like a satirical condemnation of both.
Hee.

I've admittedly read a lot of Ayn Rand. Read: Anthem, Night of January 16th, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged.

As a high school English prof once told me - all you really need to read is Anthem - it has her philosophy in a nutshell.
The more famous novels...for me at least, felt more like a condemnation of her philosophy than and endorsement, which I know she did not intend. And most Randians would vehmentally
condemn me for suggesting it. (shrugs).

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

OT: Did the VCL thing work out?

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I downloaded it to my computer, but haven't had a chance to try it yet. Hopefully it will.

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

I watched about half of the premiere of The Cape and decided I wasn't interested enough to watch the rest. Not horrible, it just doesn't reach "good" in any definable way.

It looked like it would have been fine for kids, but it isn't directed toward them.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

No, my attention admittedly kept wandering during it. It's too dark for kids.

I saw the previews and there doesn't appear to be anything interesting coming either. Shame, because the actors are somewhat appealing. But the writing is really sub-par. Too cliche and derivative. I keep waiting for someone to come up with something new regarding the super-hero genre, but all I see is a retread of old ground. Maybe the genre much like the vampire one has finally run its course? (shrugs).

[atpo-onm.livejournal.com]

The TV critic whose syndicated column appears in my local paper was rather positive about it, so I was looking forward to the pilot since he's usually pretty meh on genre stuff.

Wow, was that disappointing. All of the problems you mentioned, but I had a more negative reaction to them. However, being a Summer Glau fan, I've decided to tune in for a couple more episodes to see where they go with this. Sure enough, tonight's episode was better, although they are still wasting Glau, bummed about that. At least the writing was a bit tighter and it was less cartoony.

I'm still enjoying No Ordinary Family. I've mostly adjusted to the slowish pace, the writing is very respectable and the actors are all excellent. May be the 3rd best broadcast network genre show on currently (Fringe is still my top pick at the moment, followed closely by Supernatural).

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the Cape is fairly boilerplate, good to know it improves marginally. But not sure it will hold my interest much longer.

Hmmm...network genre shows? I admittedly enjoy Vampire Diaries.
(But I think, no, I know you'd hate it.) While Fringe - I gave up on after six episodes (which apparently wasn't a good idea, because it got much much better in the second season, but hey, too late now.) I'm guessing that happened with a lot of people.

The better genre shows are off-network or cable, partly because cable can do more with them and has more time to build them - I think. Network tv is rather limited in it's resources and has to cater far too much to ratings and advertisers, while cable
has greater flexibility and is happy if they hit the right demo.