The Cape - season 1

At least this is a full on superhero show. I'd rather have a superhero without the powers than the powers without superheroes.

This show interests me. It looks gritty which is the kind of superhero movie I like.

From the New York Times.  I think they liked it.

http://tv.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/arts/television/07cape.html?ref=television

I was pleasantly surprised. The cheesy parts were no more cheesy than the promos made them out to be, and other areas of the show were more sophisticated than I expected. After seeing shows like "Heroes" and "No Ordinary Family" run away from their comic book roots, it's sort of nice to see a show that embraces all of that and literally is a live action comic book. I was a little confused by the chapter titles, since many of them had little if anything to do with the segment that followed.

Keith David was a standout as the self-amused ringleader of the circus band of thieves. David Lyons does a good job of carrying the show in a very thankless role. He plays Vince as a very serious dude, but one that isn't above having a laugh at his own expense. There was a nice balance between presenting a person, as a former cop and special-ops soldier, that you could suspend your disbelief and buy surviving out there and someone with a long way to go before his persona is perfected and his moves are down pat. Jennifer Ferrin reminds me a bit of Virginia Madsen as Vince's wife. Summer Glau's digital wizard is also more interesting than she appeared at first glance: she's smart, but she's also obviously rich and has her own reasons for taking on a secret identity. "Orwell" is a bit too on the nose for someone who watches everything, but it goes down a little better knowing that it's a pseudonym and not a writer trying to be too clever by half when naming her.

While this premiere owed a lot to the two Nolan Batman pictures, I thought it was an interesting twist here having a home city that looked sparkling and clean, with the rot just under the surface. The establishing shots look glamorous, and then the camera takes you into the dark, gritty corners of that facade.

So far, so good. It's not Shakespeare, but I'm pleasantly surprised. It should make a good block with "Chuck" starting a week from tomorrow.

Man, that was awful. The writing and acting was dreadful, the show made no sense whatsoever. So basically this guy who is a human being can jump from roof top to roof top and can survive being dropped off a tall building, BECAUSE ? He can vanish into smoke, BECAUSE ? The Cape's mentor is a crook and robs banks and also can train cops to be super hero's ? His first appearance with our hero he wanted to cut his fingers off and chop his head off too. The next time we meet him ? He is the new father figure. It was ridiculous how quick the transition phase was.

The action scenes between Check Mate and the Cape ? Man, that was campy. It screamed cheese. Seriously, 'I am the Cape'. I cringed when I heard that for the 5th time. 'One man can make a difference !!!!!". WTF ? A complete rip off of Batman. I'll give this show another episode but I can't imagine it will last a full season.

I kept thinking of NBC's failed "Kings".   Just terrible, IMHO

I don't know, I'm kind of wondering what those of you who hated it so much expected...

I mean, sure it was cheesy at parts, but I don't know how you could get the impression that this would be anything other than light and mindless.

I enjoyed it for what it is,  and agree that it'll fit well in a block with Chuck... but I wouldn't be upset at all if/when it gets cancelled either.

The show doesn't know what it wants to be. I mean, one minute it's a comedy, the next minute it's all dark and serious and then it's extremely campy which kind of offsets the dark and serious tone from before. It's like a freak show (pun intended). I honestly thought this show was a comedy when the circus brigade entered the picture. When the circus freaks broke into the bank I really didn't know what I was watching to be honest.

There were so many 'WTF' moments in this show. In a matter of minutes the main character is a master of hypnosis (this is a 'WTF' moment all in itself) and can catch objects at extreme speeds, surviving a fall from a building, crashing into a taxi and seemingly surviving (how one learns to absorb the impact of such a fall is beyond me), the list goes on and on. There was no justification for any of it. The transition phase from being totally out of his depth to being a master of the cape was just too quick.

The fight sequences were, well, campy, but not in a good way. It was cringe worthy. 'I am the Cape'.....well, 'I AM CHECK MATE'..spinning his little digitized chess board. It's like Batman and Robin in the 1950's. Come on.

I agree with Joe; what were you expecting exactly? The concept is inherently a bit cheesy. I disagree that the show made no sense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vaughan Odendaal 

So basically this guy who is a human being can jump from roof top to roof top and can survive being dropped off a tall building, BECAUSE ? He can vanish into smoke, BECAUSE ?

He uses his cape as a glider. It's not as magic or as perfect as Batman's cape, but it's enough to slow his fall and make plunges like the one he took in the hour survivable? Would that be true in the real world? Probably not, but it's true in this universe.

The vanishing into smoke trip seems to involve distracting the opponent (and the viewer) with the smoke while running out of site from behind the smoke cloud.

The Cape's mentor is a crook who is a master of the theatrical. Vince gave the ringleader his Ark Corporation access card in exchange for sparing his life; that access card resulted in great success for the carnival gang in their robberies.

For the time being, Vince and the carnival gang share an enemy in Chess, which allows him to overlook the illicit nature of their business. The ringleader initially started training him to be a new member of his crew, planning to turn him into a Robin Hood that steals from Ark and gives to them, in exchange for reuniting Vince with his family. Vince's plans were more ambitious.

Of course it's a ripoff of Batman. If you want to tell a pseudo-gritty crime drama with a normal human at peak physical fitness prowling the rooftops at night in a costume, it's going to be a ripoff of Batman. The question is whether it's a good ripoff or a bad ripoff, taken on its own merits.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vaughan Odendaal 

The transition phase from being totally out of his depth to being a master of the cape was just too quick.

To be fair, he was a special-ops soldier during his time in the military; it's not like he's an ordinary street cop learning all of this from scratch.

At the end of the day, the dividing point's going to be between people who can embrace the pulpy cheesiness of it all, and those who can't get over the ridiculousness of it all.

It was much better than I was expecting, especially from NBC. I'll stick with it as long as it delivers what I saw last night.

I think it could fly, with a dollop of salt, but to be true to it's comic-book aspects, in my opinion, the production and photography should be more stylized. Watching it in video-realistic high definition just doesn't seem compatible to me.  They should spend a bit more on post-production. 

Is tonights episodes a repeat from Sunday?

Vaughan, just so you don't think you'are alone, I disliked it too, except I will not be giving it another chance. There's no objective criteria for taste, so it's going to be pointless for the two factions to argue over it. Those who liked it? Cool. Those who didn't? Also cool. I am, however, curious what the 2nd and 3rd week ratings will look like. What did I expect? Nothing. What did I hope for? An entertaining superhero story. It didn't entertain me.

Just brutal. And this is the type of show that is geared for someone like me.

Used to read comics, like action/sci-fi type shows...but this was just plain hard to watch.

Anyone know what kind of ratings it got Sunday night?

Kills me that all the shows I love get canned, bet this one will live for 5 seasons.

Well I have a mixed reaction to it... I wanted to like it... I think it would have to grow on me.

"I agree with Joe; what were you expecting exactly"?

I only watched the pilot (or first hour) but I didn't think it was very good. That being said, pilots aren't always indicative of how good or bad a show will become so I'll stick with it for a couple more episodes at least. And I dig Keith David and James Frain so it'll be cool to see their work on a weekly basis.

After all the laughably overly-serious superhero movies that they've made lately, I do like the more light hearted tone of the show. On the negative side, everything moved way too fast. It was like I was watching a recap show where a bunch of things have to be distilled into 40 minutes rather than a story where things unfolded at a natural pace.

I liked it.  Yes, it had plot holes.  Yes, it had eye rolling moments.  I don't care.  I like it for what it is: decent popcorn entertainment.  I also like it for what what it isn't: yet another cop/courtroom/medical drama, or Heroes season 2-4.   I will agree that it progressed too fast, but that is thanks to today's short attention span mentality.

Horrible. Just awful. Ended up watching most of it at 1.5x to make it go away faster. Plus I wanted to see Summer Glau. But she couldn't save this mess of different styles.

The Tick did the humorous parts better.

Movies from the early 1970s did the action better.

And Carnivale did carnivals better.

This show doesn't have the chops of any of those shows. It won't last 6 episodes.

I certainly think the second hour was stronger than the first.  Way too much exposition and setting up the series in the Pilot while the second hour felt more like a "normal" episode.  Pilot could very easily have been spread out over at least two episodes, if not three.  Not great television, but I do think there's promise if the elements can be straightened out.

My pvr was pretty much empty so I decided to check this out,I wasn't expecting much, but this is about as bad as scripted television can get. Who greenlights this crap? It's fine to do something light and mindless, Human Target & The Good Guys pull it off, but I've seen saturday morning cartoons which are executed better than The Cape. The pilot had a half season's worth of content/character development crammed into it.

The scene where Chess reveals his identity sums up how bad this show is. After he takes off his mask they cut to an earlier scene of the head Ark dude just to unnecessarily remind the audience who he is. TV audiences are generally pretty dumb, but they're not that dumb.

This shouldn't get a pass just because it's a superhero show.

I thought it was ok. I was really excited about it after watching the promos but was a little disappointed. I really hope it gets better. I'm a sucker for any kind of live action super hero series. Didn't care much for Heroes or Smallville, though. I'm more of a Batman fan which this show seems to resemble. I enjoyed Birds of Prey but that only lasted a season.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bob_S. 

I thought it was ok....I'm more of a Batman fan which this show seems to resemble....

Well yeah, it seems the only reason they named the character "The Cape" was to be as generic as possible so that the Batman folks couldn't sue. But "The Cape" is clearly a vigilante of justice, a cause for hope, etc. All the usual Batman stuff. If they'd named his character "The Utility Belt" it would have been too clear that it is a Batman ripoff. So they went with the most generic attribute that any superhero has: a cape.

I thought it was all right.  The transition with the Circus of Crime seemed more than a little abrupt to me, but then again, comic books tend to have serious pacing issues.  Presenting the show as a series of chapters seemed like a good trick to me.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by LarryH 

I think it could fly, with a dollop of salt, but to be true to it's comic-book aspects, in my opinion, the production and photography should be more stylized. Watching it in video-realistic high definition just doesn't seem compatible to me.  They should spend a bit more on post-production. 

Were you watching the same show I was?  I mean, yeah, they didn't shade it all into primary colours with hard outlines, but the atmospherics, the colour schemes, &c were definitely oriented toward creating an effect.