Finished the season last night, and while it was decent at times, it felt overly drawn out time and time again. Like nothing really happens for 98% of each episode, and the climatic 2% is a huge letdown, especially the confrontation at the end of e9.
Wife commented that it follows a daytime soap formula. Lots of drama for drama’s sake, a “big” reveal at the end so you tune in the next day.
I think that’s the critique in a nutshell: they maximized the soap content of the source material and failed to demonstrate the pacing and tension that made the original so good. The comic is more of a chase drama than a soap, although it has soapy elements. The show is basically pure soap. And there’s a much better teen soap over on the CW, Riverdale.
It’s disappointing that they either chose to do this, or the scriptwriters weren’t good enough not to. The show is not only soapy, it’s weak writing. Just watch the episode where the kids have run away and are camped out on the hill, the dialogue used to justify what they do makes no sense at all. It’s the most transparent part of the whole farce. I kept watching hoping a rabbit would be pulled out of a hat, and the show would pick up in quality.
I like Julian McMahon, it’s a pity he ends up in poor productions like this.
Keeping track of names to faces, especially the parents was also tough for me. And agreed, the last episode was really bad.
Any idea how Alex knew how to contact his dad’s gangster buddy? So Alex, Gert, Nico and Chase have no real powers? Unless being moody and whiny, talking to a dino, and using tech counts?
Nico can use the staff. Except they ended the season without resolving anything having to do with the parents, so she doesn’t have it. So no, none of them have any inherent powers. Which isn’t necessarily a knock against them. Tony Stark, Black Widow, Punisher, and many other Marvel superheroes don’t have them.
Again, this kind of soapy, overlapping-loyalty, mutual-secretkeeping stuff can make for great TV. You just need a script that can back it up, actors who can sell it, and episode-length plots that can sustain it for the season. I don’t think this has any of that.
Right, but their skills and experiences combine to form their superhero-ness. Nico and Chase just use tech, and badly at that. I think the whole thing about her Wiccan-nese was all baloney once her mom said they created the staff to work on wishes. Which somehow doesn’t have the power to save Victor or kill/harm Jonah. Gert and the dino didn’t even do anything the whole season, save for Old Lace eating a chicken.
I really was hoping either the kids or parent would “win”, with latent powers finally materializing, but all we got was a shitty EDM light show.
So season 2 came out a while back, but I was in no rush, so I’m just now getting around to watching it. (Had to finish reading novels about cheesy 80s cartoons first!)
I’m up to episode 7 and…it kinda feels done. They went ahead and did a big showdown right in the middle of the season. Of course I can see any number of ways they can push things ahead, but right now it feels like they got to the end of the plot. I’m used to these kind of mid-season things being more cliffhanger than brick wall.
As far as the style of the show, nothing’s really different from season 1. Plenty of family emotional trauma and teen angst, occasional superpowers.
OK, finished out season 2 and I’m interested enough that I’d like to see a third season. I think the “things are finished” feeling I got in the middle was a lack of foreshadowing. Of the plotlines, I mean. There were lots of relationship threads left hanging, which I suppose is what they were counting on as the cliffhanger.
Also, they really need to rein in whoever is choreographing Niko’s action shots. Way overdone.