Having had so little faith in The Cape as to order only 13 episodes of this year's requisite superhero series, and then postpone the run till mid-season as if to add insult to injury, news has just hit of a final, irrevocable twist of the knife: NBC has reduced their order to a paltry 10 episodes. Presumably roughly as many the showrunners have in the can as is.
The Cape, in short, is doomed.
Long live The Cape!
There can be precious surprise, I suppose, about the dire fortunes of this silly little series. I'd be surprised to see the network even dignify The Cape with an outright cancellation. It hasn't been a ratings smash, nor anything approaching a success with the critics; in fact the only thing The Cape seems to have had going for it is the notion that it's "so bad it's good" - a nonsense made exponentially less meaningful (if it ever had any meaning at all) with every repetition.
What am I getting at, exactly? Well, at the risk of annoying anyone who's ever enjoyed a comic book, I tend to think that statement's a steaming load: The Cape isn't exactly great television, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it's far and away the most faithful superhero comic book show I've ever seen - in tone and spirit and execution. It's silly, frivolous and off-kilter in exactly the same way the vast majority of superhero comic books are silly, frivolous and off-kiler - and for that reason, I've enjoyed it a great deal.
If you're going to say it's "so bad it's good," internet, at least be truthful about what you're trashing: if The Cape is bad, it's bad only in the sense so many of the comic books I presume we all adore are bad. Let's not be dicks about a show which consciously embraces the same gleeful, madcap silliness we all do week in, week out - every Wednesday without complaint.
I for one will be watching The Cape to the bitter end, and I'll make no apologies for my fondness. Will you?
I'll preface this comment by admitting that I'm totally clueless: I've never read The Cape, and I've never seen The Cape. That being said, I'm curious about this:
ReplyDelete"If you're going to say it's "so bad it's good," internet, at least be truthful about what you're trashing: if The Cape is bad, it's bad only in the sense so many of the comic books I presume we all adore are bad."
It's possible, surely, to dislike a specific instance or a format that you enjoy? After all, if it were not, we bloggers could just stamp "It's Fantasy" at the bottom of our cover art posts and be done.
I don't know. Without something to compensate for the visual dynamics lost in the move from panel to screen, the direct translation of tropes *lacks* the tone, spirit and execution to me. It just feels like they've traced the outlines and then inked by numbers. It's maybe not fair to compare Raimi's Spiderman given that it's big screen versus small screen (not to mention budget, star power, etc.,) but I can't help feeling there's a difference right down in the very heart. The Cape doesn't feel like an avid comics fan has thrown himself into capturing the essence of comics. It feels like a tv executive's pastiche of comics.
ReplyDeleteIt feels totally televisual to me, even datedly so -- like it belongs somewhere between the 70s superhero shows (Spiderman, Hulk, Wonder Woman) and the 90s The Flash. Shit, it feels like a Glen A. Larson production -- a la Six Million Dollar Man TVM, Magnum PI, The Fall Guy, Knight Rider, Manimal, Automan. It feels like it was made 20 years ago, like they just pulled it from the vaults, slapped some CGI over the dodgy FX and chucked it out into the wilds.