The Cape premiered on NBC January 9th following the standard three month marketing campaign. I was as hopeful as a grown man can be about a new superhero forged on the gritty streets of a crime ridden city willing to fight for us all. But that isn't exactly what NBC created in this new comic book based series.
The Cape began with a bang after Vince Faraday (David Lyons) failed to save his own police chief trapped in an exploding SUV. Faraday, one of the few remaining honest cops left in Palm City, takes his job very seriously with the same unrelenting focus any cop turned superhero should have. But he and the entire city stand against the unrelenting Chess (James Frain) and his demonic campaign of world domination.
With the occasional secret revelation from the mysterious Orwell (Summer Glau), the Palm City Police Department fights a battle of diminishing results to stave off the tide of evil that is Chess.
The first episode of The Cape managed to place a great deal of information about the characters and future plots into a small amount of air time. Credit has to be given to the writers for pulling that off and not saturating the viewer with too much information. The premise is sound, the drive for justice is admirable, and the hero is relatable. Even the secondary players, Max Malini (David Kieth), Rollo (Martin Klebba), Scales (Vinnie Jones) make The Cape a complex story that is seemingly impossible to become boring.
The premier episodes appear to be filmed behind a gray lens, with shadows deep and foreboding, appropriate lighting for The Cape's support group and circus gang of bank robbers.
Under the tents of a traveling circus and the tutelage of Max Malini, Faraday becomes a vigilante crime fighter using the magic tricks and the physical deftness of veteran circus performers. Borrowing from The Shadow, Faraday manipulates the minds of others by learning hypnotism from Ruvi (Anil Kumar) and Malini's trick of disappearing into a vortex of black and gray smoke combined with the ability to use a specially made cape, becomes useful for both defense and attack.
The Cape has the potential for greatness if it isn’t overshadowed by production costs or visually impaired producers, or both. The primary example of Audience Empathy Impairment (a Hollywood specific disease) is that Faraday has a great deal of love for his son Trip (Ryan Wynott) that is so overly empathized it makes the watcher cringe. Also the show drops some not so subtle hints that Orwell (this is only a spoiler if you are under the age of 11) is actually the estranged daughter of Chess. Lastly, Peter Fleming (Chess), one of the most successful corporate heads on earth, is physically supported by The Cape under a moving train to repair a broken brake line.
Over-the-top is expected for a superhero genre specific TV series and for me the only missing notes are the interactions between regular people. The circus folk, crime lords or anyone about to go into action have all the readable lines, the most believable moments. And perhaps the world of underground vigilantism has been sold so well the ‘real world’ of The Cape, has suffered.
Three out of Five Pens
Written by Dennis M. Sweatt, Comic Book Artist, Father, blogger, web designer.
http://sweattshop-graphic-artist.blogspot.com/
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Tags:
The Cape, Superhero, TV