The Cape-New NBC Superhero Series: Starts tonight

I'll watch it, I think it looks pretty awesome. I hate that they are showing it tonight as well as tomorrow night, though. I'll probably try to watch it tomorrow just to get in the habit of watching it in the normal time slot.
 
[quote name='mtxbass1']Another tired superhero series. How long before this gets canned? I'm betting 6 episodes, max.[/QUOTE]

+

[quote name='help1']Looks like a batman rip off.[/QUOTE]

My first 2 thoughts when I saw the preview of the show.

NBC is almost reaching a Fox-like level of canceling shows at the first sign of low ratings. I'm just not to keen on getting involved in another one.
 
Looks semi-interesting. But I'll only watch if it gets good reviews and a full season, in that case I'll Netflix it.

I refuse to watch serial dramas as they air anymore (at least at the start) as I've gotten burned to many times with getting into shows and having them canceled with no story resolution.
 
Didnt look interesting at all.

Like dmaul said, serial dramas are complete bullshit. Just like all these cop dramas floating around. Prove to me that you are worth even giving a shot by getting high ratings for an entire season and then I will play catch up later.
 
[quote name='Soodmeg']Didnt look interesting at all.

Like dmaul said, serial dramas are complete bullshit. Just like all these cop dramas floating around. Prove to me that you are worth even giving a shot by getting high ratings for an entire season and then I will play catch up later.[/QUOTE]

Except that if everyone had this philosophy the ratings would be terrible and the show would get cancelled.
 
I'll be watching just so I can complain about how awful it is. See: Heroes, V, Knight Rider, Bionic Woman, etc.
 
[quote name='n8rockerasu']Except that if everyone had this philosophy the ratings would be terrible and the show would get cancelled.[/QUOTE]

Well, its a good thing I wasnt talking about everyone isnt it. :roll:
 
that one vampire guy from trueblood is in it i dont have high hopes for it but who knows. besides even if this show flops at least Misfits is still going strong. canrt wait to see what their new powers will be.
 
I like superhero things but something about this from the previews looks "off." I'll be DVRing it, but I don't have high hopes for this.
 
[quote name='Soodmeg']Well, its a good thing I wasnt talking about everyone isnt it. :roll:[/QUOTE]

That deserved an eye roll? Really? I made a general statement of fact. Who pissed in your cornflakes this morning?
 
I looked up the plot synopsis on Wikipedia and I am somehow even less interested in seeing it than I was before, I'll spoiler it just in case someone wants to go in completely fresh on it:

The series, set in the fictional metropolis of Palm City, follows an innocent cop who has been framed for a crime he did not commit and then left for dead after he is caught. He is eventually saved by a circus ringleader who prepares him with special abilities to defend himself against his foes. Separated from his wife and son, he tries to clear his name while protecting them from being killed in the event that he should be reported alive. He takes the law into his own hands by taking the guise of his son's favorite comic book hero, The Cape, after he is given a special suit that has unique capabilities. Vowing to get rid of the corruption that has taken over both the city and the police force, he goes after the person responsible for setting him up and causing his "demise".

So basically the plot is 100% ripped off from Spawn which had more or less adapted from the original story for Punisher which was a derivation from the original Batman backstory. Yawn...
 
Metacritic has it at a 57 overall.

http://www.metacritic.com/tv/the-cape/season-1/critic-reviews


Most all of the reviews (even the ones deemed positive by metacritic standards) say the same thing, its not exciting or original and one must completely turn off their brain to give it a chance.

Personally I find it kinda disgracefully the trend of these TV Dramas to continue to ask audiences to sacrifice more and more of their IQ to "get" their shows. Just take the time to make a solidly written story instead of short cutting your way through and dumping it in the lap of the viewer.

Here is some remarks from the worst review there.


The Cape's signature is, of course, his cape, but it's no ordinary garment, given to him by Max Malini (Keith David), leader of a troupe of circus performers-cum-bank robbers who shelter Vince while he's on the run. The cape is somehow able to expand and retract incredibly fast so that Vince can whip out his sleeves like silky fists. In order to explain its physics, the show's writers have Malini intone, "Made entirely of spider silk, stronger than Kevlar but thinner than filament." David, who has years of practice in B movies, says this nonsense in a heavy baritone as though it actually makes sense.
Click to expand...

The Cape's writers are unable to elevate any of the characters beyond the most basic of archetypes. Vince is simply a good cop in a corrupt city, trying to provide for his loving wife and adoring son. The bad guys are seemingly evil for evil's sake; their only individuality comes from the strange comic-book-villain physical quirks they're given. One, played by Vinnie Jones, has snake-like skin and goes by the moniker Scales, but that's all we're told about him, as though that's enough to justify his existence.
Click to expand...
 
[quote name='Soodmeg']Metacritic has it at a 57 overall.

http://www.metacritic.com/tv/the-cape/season-1/critic-reviews


Most all of the reviews (even the ones deemed positive by metacritic standards) say the same thing, its not exciting or original and one must completely turn off their brain to give it a chance.

Personally I find it kinda disgracefully the trend of these TV Dramas to continue to ask audiences to sacrifice more and more of their IQ to "get" their shows. Just take the time to make a solidly written story instead of short cutting your way through and dumping it in the lap of the viewer.

Here is some remarks from the worst review there.[/QUOTE]


i agree with you on that. for tv shows and movies they always give you that dont overthink it or turn off your brains and just enjoy the ride excuse for why a show isnt that great to people.

tv in america is so embarassing when you compare it to what other countries are doing. that said ill give the show a chance being a comic nerd and all.
 
[quote name='n8rockerasu']Except that if everyone had this philosophy the ratings would be terrible and the show would get cancelled.[/QUOTE]

Cept it wouldn't matter anyway , since only Neilson households matter for ratings. That helps me justify not watching a show when its originally airing vs. watching when it comes to dvd/streaming online , I'm not part of the problem since me watching it or not doesn't mean jack anyway. Part of why I've always thought the idea of "Neilson ratings" as a poor indicator of anything.

Back to "The Cape" , not that anyone would probably take their opinions on TV shows or movies worth anything anyway , US Weekly gave the show a 1.5 out of 4 and the US BUST award for general failure.
 
[quote name='VipFREAK']I'll give it a shot since I found out Summer Glau is in it. Not expecting much.[/QUOTE]

Summer Glau is the effing kiss of death for t.v. shows.

Firefly? Dead.
Terminator: TSCC? Dead.
Dollhouse? Dead.

You couldn't pay me to put Summer Glau into my sci-fi show.
 
[quote name='pacifickarma']Summer Glau is the effing kiss of death for t.v. shows.

Firefly? Dead.
Terminator: TSCC? Dead.
Dollhouse? Dead.

You couldn't pay me to put Summer Glau into my sci-fi show.[/QUOTE]

She brings the geeks in though.
 
[quote name='pacifickarma']Summer Glau is the effing kiss of death for t.v. shows.

Firefly? Dead.
Terminator: TSCC? Dead.
Dollhouse? Dead.

You couldn't pay me to put Summer Glau into my sci-fi show.[/QUOTE]
I thought the same thing. I don't watch Chuck, but I noticed she guest starred, and it made me wonder if she could possibly overcome that stigma.
 
[quote name='pacifickarma']Summer Glau is the effing kiss of death for t.v. shows.

Firefly? Dead.
Terminator: TSCC? Dead.
Dollhouse? Dead.

You couldn't pay me to put Summer Glau into my sci-fi show.[/QUOTE]


:rofl::rofl::rofl:
 
Well I don't know about you guys, but NBC is doing that coverage about the Arizona's shootings... looks like it might go over time :|
 
Awful. I think they could of crammed a few more commercials in to0.....

The show itself tried cramming way to much crap into 2 episodes. The pacing was terrible and the plot was just dumb. Like what happened to
the boat with explosives? Did it just magically go away?
 
The pacing was definitely the biggest problem for me. It's like they were forced to do an origin for the character by the network, so they just decided to see if they could maybe fit it into like 15 minutes, half of which would be montages covering an indeterminate period of time. (He apparently learns to be the "best circus act of all time" within a week or two.)

The review about the lack of motivations for nearly all the characters is also a very valid point. They just show up, do some evil, and go away again.

However, both of these should be considered in the context of it being a pilot. The pacing is something that will hopefully be fixed now that they've gotten through establishing how The Cape came to be, which will allow them to move onto the action that they apparently want to focus on. And, as far as the motivations go, well, how many shows do you start out knowing why everyone is doing what they are doing? I'd hope they'll fill some of that stuff in as they go along. At the very least, you can infer a lot about Chess' motivations (ie he's sort of a Lex Luthor type that wants control).
 
I watched the first half of it going to do the second probably tomorrow night. I didn't think it was that bad. If I never saw another episode I wouldn't care either though. I'll most likely keep it on the list of things I dvr for this season.
 
The plot could have worked if the pacing wasn't so bad. They had two hours for a origin story, but they completely rushed it. The origin stories are usually the best part of super hero movies/tv shows and if its this bad...
 
Awful, awful show...much more corny than it was advertised to be.

I'll echo the statements that the pacing was horrendous. It would've been better had they focused the first episode on the city problems with Chess or whatever and the main guy getting framed. The second episode could then focus on him training and acquiring the "Cape" moniker.

Instead, they took 20 different back-stories and ideas and just crammed them all into what couldn't have been more than an hour and 15 minute show thanks to the insane amount of commercials.

I'll stick around for a few more episodes, but if this doesn't get better quickly it's getting removed from my DVR schedule.
 
Amazed that all of you had the exact same reaction that I did: I can't remember a pilot with worse pacing than this, and I watch a lot of television. It was just so bizarrely written that it was difficult to find much enjoyment in it, and I usually eat shows like this up.

It's like "Hi we just met now you're my sidekick so help me out on this mission oh now here's this huge big conspiracy thing and i'm gonna fight the main bad guy (but it's just part one don't worry)" Run-on sentence intentionally included to illustrate how horribly written this was. They just couldn't wait to get to the "cool bits" and completely ignored things like character development which is pretty key for an origin story. You need to make me care about this guy more than just showing me he reads to his kid and isn't a shitty cop.

I tuned in for Summer Glau. Even though she's usually the kiss of death for shows, I'll still watch anything and everything she's in at least once.
 
Another thing. The characters were just um off? Sort of spoilerish...

How is it that the girl (can't remember her name...Terminator girl) is able to magically shut off cell phone reception in a certain area but the cop guy has to get into Chess's computer using his old friends password? That isn't in her skill set?

Also I'm pretty sure the training he did took place in about a day or two. Somehow.....

The dialog was another problem along with the characters actions. Cape beats up cain and hog ties him. Then Chess walks in and he just leaves Cain. WTF was the point of that? Why not take him to jail or kill him. This show is like watching a Christian version of Batman.
 
I missed this, and the only reason I wanted to see it was because of Keith David. Sounds like it was as stupid as I figured it would be from the previews.
 
This was exactly what I expected. Garbage. I stopped after the 1st episode.

Summer Glau. Hot? Definitely. Good actress? Oh, hell no.
 
It was okay... Plot and characters are thin... All off the stuff with Glau was absurdly rushed and doesn't make perfect sense. For having 2 hours to flesh out the origins I don't see how this ended up so rushed. I'll give it a try though. Maybe they'll hit a groove with the origins behind them and they can just focus on one hour episodes.
 
Oh christ... I just saw the beginning.

DVR > Teh Cape > Delete Series > Yes.

Edit: FF to Glau's part. Yeah, she'll kill this one too. LOL
 
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[quote name='neocisco']This was exactly what I expected. Garbage. I stopped after the 1st episode.

Summer Glau. Hot? Definitely. Good actress? Oh, hell no.[/QUOTE]

Summer Glau did a great job in The Terminator series. A good actor/actress can only do so much with bad dialogue and poor direction, and it sounds like The Cape is full of both (I can't bring myself to watch it).
 
[quote name='ChibiJosh']I guess I'm in the vast minority when I say I enjoyed it.[/QUOTE]

Actually I enjoyed it to, despite hating it and thinking it was terrible. If the show has enough interesting elements to me I'm able to ignore the fact that it's objectively awful and still have fun watching it (No Ordinary Family is sort of the same way for me).
 
[quote name='johnnypark']Summer Glau did a great job in The Terminator series. A good actor/actress can only do so much with bad dialogue and poor direction, and it sounds like The Cape is full of both (I can't bring myself to watch it).[/QUOTE]

That's because she was a robot, which played to her "strengths".

Good for not watching it, that time can be spent doing something else, anything else.
 
Finally got around to watching this today and I have to say, I actually enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I don't know, maybe reading all of the criticisms in here lowered my expectations even more (they were already pretty low), but I really bought into the show's premise. It's not the most original thing ever, but in terms of super hero lore, it fits right in.

I found it amusing that the skill Vince seemed to struggle with the most was his hand to hand combat considering that should have been an ability that came naturally since he was a police officer. I also have to give the show credit for not taking itself too seriously and even having the convenient store clerk (referred to as "Borat" by the robbers, haha) ask him what his superhero name was, and when he said "The Cape", the clerk responded with "Uh...you'll work on it."

In all honesty, the biggest fear I have for the show and the thing that would turn me off from watching it is the track record for these kinds of shows on network television. Even if the show is written well, there's no guarantee it will be a financial success. At least if shows were given notice they were being cancelled, it wouldn't be quite as bad.

Heroes not having a proper ending is what makes me really gun shy with these shows. Even when Fox cancelled Prison Break after 4 seasons, they gave it enough time to not only have a proper ending, but a follow-up movie as well. If we were just promised SOME kind of wrap up, no matter what happens, it would be easier to commit...even if it only lasted one season. I guess there is enjoyment to be had regardless of how long it lasts, but I think that really hinges on how much you like the subject matter. If you're a fan of super hero themed entertainment, you'll probably enjoy this.
 
I had it on in the background while doing other things last night. I was really annoyed that they recycled the same smoke puff animation every time he disappeared. Also the rooms were magically crystal clear after all that smoke, all the rooms must have excellent ventilation.

That being said, I watch Chuck so I'll probably catch a few more episodes until its replaced with reruns of Minute to Win it or something.
 
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