Air date: 01/09/11
Created by: Tom Wheeler
Starring: David Lyons, Summer Glau, Keith David and James Frain
Looking at some of the things that have been said about this show on the net I could just about be the only person who actually enjoyed it. Does it have problems? Yes of course it does, it's a new show and one of the episodes shown during this premiere event was the original pilot made to pitch the show. Pilots like those can sometimes contain just too much info and admittedly this one does. Was I entertained by it regardless? You betcha. Isn't that all we should really be looking for in a TV show? 42 minutes of entertainment.
The Cape is centered around Vince Faraday (David Lyons), an ex cop who was framed for a crime he didn't commit and is now presumed dead. Instead of coming clean and trusting the justice system he decides to go it alone as a masked vigilante dubbing himself 'The Cape' after his son's favorite comic book character. Not a stretch considering the criminal mastermind of the show, Chess (James Frain), is none other than the head of an evil conglomerate known as Ark. He also runs the private police force by the way. The fact that Faraday falls into cahoots with carnies-turned-bank-robbers who happen to have a seemingly magical cape is just a happy coincidence. Yes I said, bank robbing carnies, stay with me now. The carnies are led by Max Malini (Keith David) who agrees to teach Faraday the carnie ways which include escapism, fighting and hypnotism. The final piece of the puzzle is the Mysterious Orwell (Summer Glau), a blogger with a grudge against the Ark corporation.
It sounds ridiculous and it is, but it's the fun kind. Now if they could only accept how ridiculous the whole idea is one of the problems I have with the show could be fixed. For a show with bank robbing carnies and magic capes it takes itself way to seriously at times, far, far too seriously. Almost to the point where you have to think if the writer actually re-read his own script. The other major problem, with the pilot at least, is the pacing. It's like the mach-5 of storytelling. Faraday goes from cop to private security to falsely accused murder to presumed dead to carnie trainee to masked vigilante all in about the first 15-20 minutes. The partnership he forms with Orwell is cemented in about 90 seconds and Summer Glau is criminally underused. That's probably my biggest problem, the awesome Glau get's very little screen time but that could, and probably will, change as the season progresses.
That's the pilot in a nutshell, a nutshell thrown at your head at 90 miles an hour. Thankfully the second part of the premier event 'Tarot' slows the pace down a little and gives us a little more story to get our teeth into. The Cape breaks into the office of Peter Fleming AKA Chess but is attacked by an assassin known as Cain AKA Chef. Cain poisons Faraday with a poisoned blade and he is rescued by Orwell. Glau features a little more in this second hour but still not enough to satisfy the fan boy in me. We also still don't really find out anything at all about her, she can fight, she's resourceful, she's rich, they seem to be going for a kind of Oracle-esque character with her which could work out fine. Together they uncover Chess's latest plan to have the head of the bureau of prisons assassinated so that Ark can take over the prison system as well as the police force. Naturally The Cape sets out to foil the dastardly plan. Underneath all this there is the story of Faraday's family having to deal with the fallout from his 'crimes' and his supposed death. One of the most sincere and believable moments in the entire two hours comes when Faraday, as The Cape, visit's his son Trip to let him know that his dad didn't do the things that he was accused of and that he's going to prove it and clear his name. That is one of the things that this show really has going for it in my eyes. Put aside all the ridiculousness and the characters are genuinely interesting and likable. It's easy to care about Faraday and his family. They just need to be given more depth or they will become very stale, very fast.
Overall, I thought it was a decent first showing. It's not without it's problems, but nothing so big that it cant be fixed if the show runners actually take notice of it. It did what it was supposed to do, it entertained, naturally it's not going to be for everyone but anyone looking for a fun niche show to fill one of their weekly programming blocks should check it out. Once The Cape decides which direction it truly wants to go in it could improve drastically, helped in no small part by utiliising Glau just a little more. Will it have the chance to try and find it's feet on a network that has been in flux for some time now in a day and age where TV shows can be canceled in as little as 1 or 2 episodes? I don't know but I'm willing to stick around and find out, at least for now.
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