TV report: The Cape (NBC)
“The Cape” is a new superhero action TV show that has some interesting aspects, but also some goofy and wrongheaded parts that must be straightened out to achieve success.
[SPOILER ALERT!]
In this show, The Cape is a superhero along the lines of Batman, namely, that he doesn’t have any super powers, but relies on special prowess, equipment, and inner drive to overcome enemies. The background is that Vince Faraday is an honest cop who is framed for a murder by a local billionaire-slash-criminal-mastermind named Chess. Faraday is believed dead, which makes his wife and young son safe from Chess. Faraday decides to stay undercover to keep his family safe while he tries to take down Chess in vigilante style. It’s almost the reverse of Batman’s origin: Batman’s family was killed, and he dedicated his life to justice. In “The Cape”, Faraday is actually the one believed dead.
I like the part where a local circus takes Faraday into the fold and teaches him all kinds of useful skills like fighting, hypnosis, and vanishing in a puff of smoke. This is where he finds an old cape and learns to use it for attack and defense. This also lets Faraday maintain a kind of connection with his son, because the son’s favorite comic book is about a character named The Cape. (You may recall that Batman also uses a cape.) I’m just glad that it wasn’t some other, less cool, article of clothing that Faraday mastered, or the show might have been called “The Sock”.
There is another vigilante in Palm City, a shadowy mysterious character named Orwell, who seems to know about everything and everybody. Orwell works behind the scenes to warn people of danger and clue the good guys in. (You may recall that, in Batman’s world, a shadowy mysterious character named Oracle also knows about everything and everybody. The fact that “Orwell” sounds like “Oracle” is, of course, pure coincidence.)
So far, so good. However, assuming that “The Cape” is not taken to court for copyright infringement by DC Comics, there are some issues they need to clear up.
First off, anyone who watches TV or movies knows that, if you run afoul of the local bad guys, there are 426 ways to escape their notice, including retiring to a sun-drenched Greek island and renting mopeds to tourists. Pretending to be dead, with your family going through genuine anguish and grief, is not high on the list. And, if you do choose to do this, visiting your young son in the garb of a fictional comic book character is not recommended. I foresee years of therapy for this kid, along with a possible Batman-like career arc himself.
Second, I have no idea what the bad guys in this show are after. Chess seems to be an illegal arms dealer, which is probably bad. But why Chess is interested in taking over the city’s police and jail operations baffles me. Possibly to hide his illegal arms business, but you’d think that moving to a more remote locale would be a lot simpler than the complex program of assassination and intimidation he has going. Fortunately, this show subscribes to the Law of Comparable Enemies, which states that the enemies that the hero faces must be roughly on his own level of capability. What you don’t want is a Batman-type character battling Superman-class bad guys. In fact, you don’t even want Batman’s enemies to be very good shots with guns: Batman has survived for 70 years largely because no bad guy has ever put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. Now, there are ways to make this behavior plausible. For instance, in Batman’s world, his enemies are almost all insane, and have their own weird agendas that mostly involve stealing giant pennies and almost never involve shooting Batman in the head. Happily, the villains that The Cape faces follow this code of behavior. Rather than shoot The Cape, they tie him in chains and dump him in the ocean. In another totally inexplicable scene, the target of an assassination walks right past a hired assassin in an empty building, and the assassin just lets him go by. Now, the assassins I know would simply turn around and put a bullet in the target’s brain, but not this one. Instead, he merely follows the intended victim with a knife, then backs off when Orwell appears. Again, any assassin worth his salt would just kill Orwell too, and add it to the list of expenses, but not this one. To make this show at all believable, they will have to come up with ways of making such behavior at least plausible.
Next, speaking of Orwell, let’s talk about casting. To play the role of the shadowy mysterious Orwell, who hides in the background, observes all from afar, and pulls strings from a distance, you would want someone who is inconspicuous and unnoticeable, right? For this role, they have cast – Summer Glau. Now, don’t get me wrong: I would willingly watch Summer Glau read the phone book for an hour. It’s not her presence in the show I object to, but the role she’s been assigned. She’s about as inconspicuous as Shaq. She would do much better as some kind of sidekick or co-vigilante, not as the behind-the-scenes know-it-all. Not only that, but, instead of stringing us – and The Cape – along with the mystery of just who this Orwell might be for a few weeks, they reveal it within the first hour. Huh?
Also, to play a tortured vigilante tragically on the run from the law, you want someone who projects charisma and a steely inner determination. Unfortunately, the actor playing the hero has about as much charisma and steely inner determination as a toothpick. Maybe less. I mean, nice guy and all, but not the romantic soul in torment. Huh?
Plus, remember the circus folk who help out The Cape? Well, they’re not the usual group of professional performers. They also rob banks. And The Cape helps them. Huh?
What's more, after leaving the circus folk, The Cape goes for a stroll, and it doesn’t take him long to find an abandoned basement perfect for a lair. Within minutes, he’s scrounged enough gear out of trash bins to furnish it with cork boards, desks, computers, and a machine that throws knives at him so he can practice catching them. Presumably, given that he’s hiding his existence from everyone, this lair is super-secret and hard to find. Yet, the head of the circus folk drops by to say hi as if there are guided tours of the place. Huh?
You know, it’s never a good sign when I have to come up with the plural of the phrase “deus ex machina” in a report. But there are lots of dei ex machinis in “The Cape”, who magically appear whenever things are getting dicey for the hero. These dei include Orwell, a circus midget, and the head of the circus. Now, I don’t mind people watching the hero’s back. But how do they know when he’s going to get thrown out of a high-rise window, and where the car is he’s going to land on? Huh?
I could go on, but you get the idea. As it is, “The Cape” has a good setup and some interesting possibilities. There are hints that Faraday has a Past as some kind of Special Ops guy, which might become significant. His wife isn’t just a longsuffering homebody, but displays spunk as she goes after a job with the District Attorney. If they can straighten out some of the goofiness, The Cape may turn out pretty good. If not, look for this cape to get folded soon.
http://www.nbc.com/the-cape/
“The Cape” is a new superhero action TV show that has some interesting aspects, but also some goofy and wrongheaded parts that must be straightened out to achieve success.
[SPOILER ALERT!]
In this show, The Cape is a superhero along the lines of Batman, namely, that he doesn’t have any super powers, but relies on special prowess, equipment, and inner drive to overcome enemies. The background is that Vince Faraday is an honest cop who is framed for a murder by a local billionaire-slash-criminal-mastermind named Chess. Faraday is believed dead, which makes his wife and young son safe from Chess. Faraday decides to stay undercover to keep his family safe while he tries to take down Chess in vigilante style. It’s almost the reverse of Batman’s origin: Batman’s family was killed, and he dedicated his life to justice. In “The Cape”, Faraday is actually the one believed dead.
I like the part where a local circus takes Faraday into the fold and teaches him all kinds of useful skills like fighting, hypnosis, and vanishing in a puff of smoke. This is where he finds an old cape and learns to use it for attack and defense. This also lets Faraday maintain a kind of connection with his son, because the son’s favorite comic book is about a character named The Cape. (You may recall that Batman also uses a cape.) I’m just glad that it wasn’t some other, less cool, article of clothing that Faraday mastered, or the show might have been called “The Sock”.
There is another vigilante in Palm City, a shadowy mysterious character named Orwell, who seems to know about everything and everybody. Orwell works behind the scenes to warn people of danger and clue the good guys in. (You may recall that, in Batman’s world, a shadowy mysterious character named Oracle also knows about everything and everybody. The fact that “Orwell” sounds like “Oracle” is, of course, pure coincidence.)
So far, so good. However, assuming that “The Cape” is not taken to court for copyright infringement by DC Comics, there are some issues they need to clear up.
First off, anyone who watches TV or movies knows that, if you run afoul of the local bad guys, there are 426 ways to escape their notice, including retiring to a sun-drenched Greek island and renting mopeds to tourists. Pretending to be dead, with your family going through genuine anguish and grief, is not high on the list. And, if you do choose to do this, visiting your young son in the garb of a fictional comic book character is not recommended. I foresee years of therapy for this kid, along with a possible Batman-like career arc himself.
Second, I have no idea what the bad guys in this show are after. Chess seems to be an illegal arms dealer, which is probably bad. But why Chess is interested in taking over the city’s police and jail operations baffles me. Possibly to hide his illegal arms business, but you’d think that moving to a more remote locale would be a lot simpler than the complex program of assassination and intimidation he has going. Fortunately, this show subscribes to the Law of Comparable Enemies, which states that the enemies that the hero faces must be roughly on his own level of capability. What you don’t want is a Batman-type character battling Superman-class bad guys. In fact, you don’t even want Batman’s enemies to be very good shots with guns: Batman has survived for 70 years largely because no bad guy has ever put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. Now, there are ways to make this behavior plausible. For instance, in Batman’s world, his enemies are almost all insane, and have their own weird agendas that mostly involve stealing giant pennies and almost never involve shooting Batman in the head. Happily, the villains that The Cape faces follow this code of behavior. Rather than shoot The Cape, they tie him in chains and dump him in the ocean. In another totally inexplicable scene, the target of an assassination walks right past a hired assassin in an empty building, and the assassin just lets him go by. Now, the assassins I know would simply turn around and put a bullet in the target’s brain, but not this one. Instead, he merely follows the intended victim with a knife, then backs off when Orwell appears. Again, any assassin worth his salt would just kill Orwell too, and add it to the list of expenses, but not this one. To make this show at all believable, they will have to come up with ways of making such behavior at least plausible.
Next, speaking of Orwell, let’s talk about casting. To play the role of the shadowy mysterious Orwell, who hides in the background, observes all from afar, and pulls strings from a distance, you would want someone who is inconspicuous and unnoticeable, right? For this role, they have cast – Summer Glau. Now, don’t get me wrong: I would willingly watch Summer Glau read the phone book for an hour. It’s not her presence in the show I object to, but the role she’s been assigned. She’s about as inconspicuous as Shaq. She would do much better as some kind of sidekick or co-vigilante, not as the behind-the-scenes know-it-all. Not only that, but, instead of stringing us – and The Cape – along with the mystery of just who this Orwell might be for a few weeks, they reveal it within the first hour. Huh?
Also, to play a tortured vigilante tragically on the run from the law, you want someone who projects charisma and a steely inner determination. Unfortunately, the actor playing the hero has about as much charisma and steely inner determination as a toothpick. Maybe less. I mean, nice guy and all, but not the romantic soul in torment. Huh?
Plus, remember the circus folk who help out The Cape? Well, they’re not the usual group of professional performers. They also rob banks. And The Cape helps them. Huh?
What's more, after leaving the circus folk, The Cape goes for a stroll, and it doesn’t take him long to find an abandoned basement perfect for a lair. Within minutes, he’s scrounged enough gear out of trash bins to furnish it with cork boards, desks, computers, and a machine that throws knives at him so he can practice catching them. Presumably, given that he’s hiding his existence from everyone, this lair is super-secret and hard to find. Yet, the head of the circus folk drops by to say hi as if there are guided tours of the place. Huh?
You know, it’s never a good sign when I have to come up with the plural of the phrase “deus ex machina” in a report. But there are lots of dei ex machinis in “The Cape”, who magically appear whenever things are getting dicey for the hero. These dei include Orwell, a circus midget, and the head of the circus. Now, I don’t mind people watching the hero’s back. But how do they know when he’s going to get thrown out of a high-rise window, and where the car is he’s going to land on? Huh?
I could go on, but you get the idea. As it is, “The Cape” has a good setup and some interesting possibilities. There are hints that Faraday has a Past as some kind of Special Ops guy, which might become significant. His wife isn’t just a longsuffering homebody, but displays spunk as she goes after a job with the District Attorney. If they can straighten out some of the goofiness, The Cape may turn out pretty good. If not, look for this cape to get folded soon.
http://www.nbc.com/the-cape/
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