Riverdale Won Me Over and Powerless is Okay

Caught the first couple episodes of Riverdale (Chapter One: The Rivers Edge and Chapter Two: A Touch of Evil) as well as the premiere of Powerless (Wayne or Loss). Not going to provide any spoilers just some quick thoughts.


Riverdale - Recall dreading hearing about some of the changes as well as the format (classic CW drama-isms). Then I mellowed out when I heard it would be more like Twin Peaks. Having seen the first couple episodes, I'd say it's a cross between shows such as Beverly Hills, 90210 (had to thrown that it in since Luke Perry is in the show. Kind of weird seeing him as the "responsible, sage adult") and Twin Peaks with a dash of Mark Waid's revamp thrown in. The show is faithful to the Archie characters while presenting them as realistic and modern as possible. Now, the show is much darker than the Waid revamp; but it's not quite Twin Peaks dark. While Riverdale is quirky, the locale and characters are small town quirky and not full-on David Lynch, Twin Peaks quirky. The murder mystery should be interesting. So far I've got four suspects although one is probably a red herring (pardon the pun). Overall, after two episodes, I've been made a fan.


Powerless - Love the opening credit sequence. Probably the closest we'll ever get to four-color, full of optimism, DC Universe on any screen. Think I heard Adam West's voice... While the superhero and super-villain scenes came across as incredibly corny, in part by the CGI, four-color super-heroics is rather corny on screen. Kind of why the Marvel heroes look the way they do. Speaking Marvel, or Marvel's Agents of SHIELD to be precise, remember the anticipation of the appearance of the big guns? Recall your disappointment when they didn't show? Other than the credit sequence, they're probably not going to appear. What is going to appear is nods, one-liners, quick references,  and D-or lower characters. So that DC hero or villain that you can't imagine ever appearing in the movies or Arrowverse? This might be the place. As for characters/actors, I liked Tudyk's and Hudgens acting. If anything, both carried the show (as by design probably). I'm probably going to continue to watch Powerless for Tudyk, the occasional nod to DC lore, and it's a nice lead in to Riverdale.


Till next time.