The Cape

I feel like this should have come out in the early 90's, syndicated with Sam Raimi & Robert Tappert as executive producers.

I just don't understand the hood thing. What happens if he's fighting crime in the wind or if someone behind him pulls the hood back... or the light shines on his face? And how come his son doesn't recognize his voice? Not really much of a secret identity at all really is it?

As for his spider-silk cape which is apparently as strong as kevlar and - oh, I'm just going to stop there. I'm obviously thinking too hard about all of this.

So, does Keith David want his soul in a metaphorical sense, or like his soul soul?

Edit: That's not the trailer to the show. Here's the actual link.

Keith David? Will have to give this a try.

I wish this happened.

The over dramatic music and slow motion shots in the trailer gave me a chuckle, and I will follow Frank Armitage anywhere, but the show doesn't look good.

I think you have your little people mixed up. It's Martin Klebba of POTC fame. Vern Troyer can hardly walk.
i give this show 3 weeks at best. Less depending on the day it's on.

It looks like a DTV movie.

In other superhero TV show news, during Lost the other night I noticed a little teaser for ABC's upcoming "No Ordinary Family". Normally I wouldn't give a shit, but it's got Michael MFing Chiklis, so I might have to watch.

Another new...Superhero series is Disney XD's...The Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes! Avengers Assemble, that is the one I want to see.

I think this looks like it could be kind of great. They are certainly doing a nifty job cutting those quick trailers. I'm probably a sucker, but I'm in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3jULaU_XpY

"Circus gang of bank robbers." I was just living my life, unsuspecting, then I read about a television show featuring a "circus gang of bank robbers." Hot damn.

It'll probably be terrible and, as predicted above, be cancelled in three weeks. Network TV's track record with comic-based heroes and stories is abysmal.

Still. I'm a sucker for the story and idea. Hope it's better than it looks, and hope it actually lasts for a while.

Tell that to a decade's worth of Smallville.

Smallville is abysmal

TV's track record for comic properties is awful. The ones we know and love are the tip of the iceberg; the 10% good vs the 90% crap. Remember M.A.N.T.I.S.? I try not to.

Oh, I know, but somebody must like it, because it's been on since the Clinton years.

Honestly, it looked okay until they show his ridiculous costume.

Is this based on an actual comic book? Because this sort of thing feels like second artist problems. Maybe it's because there's been decades to get Spider-man and Batman right, or that it's just hard to translate a comic book into a TV show because of the budget, but these shows end up looking and being silly and crappy.

Remember Night Man? And that was actually based on a comic.

Now that's a sweeping generalization. It's a fucking terrible show and all that, but the seasonal Smallville threads that pop up on CHUD are not populated with "fat chick shut-ins". Geeks, like regular humans, love awful shit, Smallville is no exception.

No, it's not based on any pre-existing property. The only superhero television show to ever make it's limited budget really for it was the 1960's Batman.

I started the latest Smallville thread. Don't love the series though, even if it manages to dig its way to some gold.

Show premieres tonight. Anyone going to give it a shot? HitFix is calling it a "noble failure." (http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/the-fien-print/posts/tv-review-nbcs-the-cape)

 

I'd like it to work, but the chances seem really, really low it'll 1) be good and 2) last beyond 2-3 episodes.

Not spectacular, but solid.  I like how they give Frain an extra beat in the scenes to let you try to figure out wtf he is thinking.

 

Jones was underused, but Keith David was great.

I didn't watch this. Should I fix that, or just keep on pretending that it doesn't exist? 

It's okay so far.  Though only half an hour into it.  Pretty good cast for the most part, which elevates some of the wonkier bits.  It does have the silly moments though. The circus conceit actually works pretty well, and some of the effects are pretty good.

"Carnival of Crime."  Lol.

I hope this show gets more then two episodes. The pilot was kind of terrible pacing wise and the second episode only a little better. 

 

Story-wise it looks like it could go places. I was ready to bow out of the show halfway through because the guy was getting waaay too creepy about missing his son and only a bit of lip service to missing his wife. Then they brought her in as a new ADA and I perked up. That's some drama I'm totally willing to watch.

 

The supporting characters are all kind of awesome and I'd love Glau to be given something to do so we can find out if she's an actual actress. I mean until now the woman has played only cyborgs and autistic super soldiers. Let's face it, neither of those roles require any real acting skills.

 

So here's hoping this show evens out and we get a fun superhero show, because No Ordinary Family is NOT doing it for me.

The only thing that worries me about Glau's character is that they really couldn't have made it more obvious that she's Chess's daughter.  No Ordinary Family is more fun overall, but this has a bit of potential.  It needs to stop trying to be Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, though.

I watched the first hour, then bowed out (early bedtime - I'm a wimp, what can I say?). Agreed that the show took a LOT from BEGINS?TDK, but it also has a much greater sense of playfulness.

 

The cast is solid, and it has a good premise and interesting world. Too many fade to blacks or elisions of obvious plot problems (when Cape fought Chess on the ship, how did Cape elude the helicopters? How did Cape elude ANYONE leaving a convenience store in costume in broad daylight?), too.

 

But I think there's potential. I hope the show is given time to find its feet.

Ehh, it's ok so far. Nothing special but I didn't feel more insulted than usual.

 

Will give it a few more episodes if only for having a Bear McCreary superhero soundtrack.

I'm in for now.  Oh who am I kidding?  I'm sure I'm in until it ends.  I'm a sucker for this stuff.

I liked it more than I thought I would.  I appreciated that the show played everything with a straight-face, and I thought the slower pace of the second hour worked much better than the pilot which seemed to move way too fast.  Keith David and James Frain are fun, Glau seemed a bit under-used, and Lyons and family are all really dull. I'm probably in for the long haul.
 

Meh...is about all I can summon up for The Cape. Like almost every other genre show to debut on one of the Big 3 networks, the break-neck speed of the narrative was a hindrance rather than a help. There was 3 episodes worth of material shoved into the first hour alone. I'll stick for another episode or two to see if they get some of the kinks worked out.

I can't say that this was good television but I did enjoy watching it.

Yeah, I thought it was pretty horrible, but enjoyed it nonetheless.  There's simply something endearing about the way it plays things so earnestly.  It doesn't aspire to be grim 'n' gritty.  It doesn't aspire to be overly campy.  It simply aspires to be a good old fashioned comic book brought to life.  And, for that, I'm willing to give it a chance to find itself.

 

This is a show that would have been perfectly at home on network television 25 years ago.

 

You know when there's a massive car wreck and you can't help but slow down and look? And then you stop and get out of the car? And then you see a shoe lying in the middle of the road and you go and pick it up and there's a foot in it?

 

That's this show. Would have been right at home on UPN Friday nights though.

It would make an excellent double feature with MANTIS.

fucking terrible, and i'm surprised how much it goes for it. the circus group was approaching inspired lunacy, but there was just no chemistry between them. the dialogue is terrible and the Cape special effects were laughably bad (a problem since the entire show depends on it). i like that it didn't go for the nitty gritty and attempted to make the show more fun but like someone said above chalk it up as an interesting failure.

I was sort of charmed by the campy absurdity of it all. Especially that hellagoofy scene where The Good Guy (what's his name again?) finds the titular Cape hanging conspicuously on a statue and starts flinging it around like a born Matador, followed DIRECTLY by a scene where Keith David announces that he hasn't seen the cape "in years" (what, you didn't notice it hanging IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM IN PLAIN VIEW?). This should be a real problem, but somehow it ended up contrbuting to my enjoyment.

 

As others have noted, it feels like a throwback to stuff like The Phantom. And I've always had a soft spot for stuff that wears its heart so conspicuously on its sleeve.

I almost broke out laughing when he started twirling around the cape like some sort of lunatic. He looked like the Star Wars kid in that scene.

This.   It's stupid, but pretty fun, and Bear's score is definitely the best thing about it.  I know he's mentioned being a fan of Shirley Walker's Batman: The Animated Series stuff, and has riffed on it in the past.  This definitely gives him more opportunities to do that.  I did get a kick out of a Battlestar track (The Dinner Party) showing up in the second episode's restaurant scene.

It was horrible.  Horrible.  Not funny, not charming, not smart.  It tried to be campy cool and failed miserably.  Its very hard to be cognizant of your campiness and still pull it off without being cheesy.  Pass. 

I hope there's an episode where the creators of the 'Cape' comic books sue our dude for copyright infringement.

 

Also. During the montage where whatsisname sets up his hideout, and decides it's a good idea to stand in front of a machine that shoots knives at him or sit around tasting poisons all day all I could think is he could use a study-buddy.

 

And not that the show lacks for missed opportunities but when you leave a KILLER CHEF hogtied in his own kitchen for his buddies to find, YOU PUT AN APPLE IN HIS MOUTH. This is basic stuff, people.

I did break out laughing. It was just soooooo goofy.

 

...and the 11-year old me would've gone crazy for it. I'dve been running around the house trying to grab things with a blanket.

 

On that level, I enjoyed it. But that said it is clearly not Good Television.

This show is yet more proof that network TV is dead. I mean, this is their attempt to cash in on the superhero genre; a show that isn't cool, isn't funny, and doesn't really attempt to do anything interesting or different. It's just... milquetoast. No decent cable channel would touch this show. 

 

That first hour was like watching a 40-minute long "Previously on The Cape..." summary. The whole thing showed a rather cynical view of their audience. How stupid are the people they're catering to that they need to flash to an image of the CEO when Chess' face is revealed... when we just saw the CEO 5 minutes earlier?!? They prevent the assassination of a guy deciding whether to hand over the jail system to the evil corporation... but never explained why the bad guys couldn't just assassinate him the day after, and have the next guy say yes to the deal? Especially since the assassin was left with the bad guys. 

 

Heck, how can The Cape accomplish anything when he (I assume) won't kill anyone, and the cops are the bad guys? From the only two hours I'm watching, it didn't appear the writers have thought about that at all.

 

Wow, did this ever read as "train wreck" to me. I hated it. Hated, hated, hated it. Like others, I think I may haved been cool with this as an 11 year old but that's only because 11 year olds don't fucking know any better, and I'm not sure that that's a particularly good justification for the show's existence or an excuse for its many failures.

 

The show's biggest problem is that the creators clearly have an origin story they want to tell but they only have so much time to do so before the episode ends, so they just rush right through it-- Faraday "dies", gets framed, Chess laughs maniacally and is badly acted, Vinnie Jones gets beaten up by Martin Klebba, and Keith David gives us a heart attack by having a near-death experience after being kidnapped (without us ever seeing the kidnapping). Oh, and Summer Glau shows up in a boner-inducing skirt, provides great material for the spank bank, is hinted to be Chess' daughter, and....that's it. There's no pace to the show, just a nervous and unsettling need on the behalf of the writers to get from point "A" to "B" as fast as possible. The result is that none of the moments that should matter get the breathing room they need to come alive and make their full impact, and the entire thing winds up flat and arid.

 

Maybe that origin could have been drawn out over the first two episodes. Faraday is The Cape by the end of 1.1. He's kind of a dumbass and clearly not very good at this hero thing, but that's not such a big deal-- it's just that we're so rushed to the finale of his birth as a hero that when Cain very nearly kills him it's hard to buy into the tension of the moment and much easier to view Faraday as a fuck-up. In other words the show undermines him as a hero, almost constantly, until the end of 1.2, and by that point I was pretty much tuned out. The action is nice and crisp and all, but this really needed to brew over the first couple of episodes instead of frizzle and fry.

 

I think now that we've gotten the origin stuff out of the way and now that Faraday has bagged his first baddie, the show could find its feet and recover, but I don't have a whole lot of faith. This should have been a lot more thought out and paced, and it's that recklessness that ends up maiming what could have been a really great show.
 

Yeah, I felt the exact same way. "How many episodes did I miss before tuning into this one?"