With its all-American family-man hero, hot hacker sidekick, and creepy corporate crook villain, The Cape seems to have a tried and true formula for success.
NBC’s newest superhero drama aired its two-hour premiere on Sunday, January 9. Since its announcement, the show has been the subject of much speculation. NBC is the network that gave the world the addicting first season of Heroes, and the later seasons that ex-devotees try to forget about. Would The Cape reflect the former glory of Heroes, or the pitfalls of its later years?
It is difficult to say, because fundamentally, The Cape is a very different premise. The characters in Heroes struggle to accommodate their newfound superpowers into otherwise normal lives; Cape’s Vince Faraday (an ex-cop played by David Lyons) has no powers. He also has no normal life, not after he is framed for a crime he did not commit by the unambiguously evil billionaire, Peter Flemming (played by the wonderfully creepy James Frain, previously of True Blood.) Faraday hides away to protect his wife and son from becoming said billionaire’s next targets; but he dons the garb of his son’s favorite superhero, the Cape, to take down the evil man incognito.
Flemming and his organization ARK (which sounds like the name of an evil organization if there ever was one) use Faraday’s apparent crime to take over and privatize the police force. Their next goal is to control the prison system. Their ultimate object is unclear.
The show is built on a solid, if overused, premise, but it is cluttered with contradictions and ambiguity. The premiere is two hours, but feels packed with too many characters, too many textures. Fight scenes on waterfronts and in alleyways are gritty, but there is also a ragtag group of morally indistinct carnies. There are lines that attempt emotional weight (“I want to show my son that one man CAN make a difference”) but a lot of predictable slapstick involving a midget.
There is also the mysteriously wealthy and secretive computer hacker Orwell (played by Summer Glau, famous for ill-fated science fiction ventures such as Firefly and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles), whose purpose is yet to be expanded beyond that of a dues ex machina, flying in to save the day when it is convenient. Richard Schiff of The West Wing fame also has a small role as the last good politician in town, and his performance is one of the best in the premiere.
The Cape strains to make its characters sympathetic; one some level, the audience wants to empathize with the wronged Farraday; his pining for his family gets lots of screen time. But actual scenes in which the viewer can see his pained family are cut short. He watches his own funeral from afar, but what could have been emotionally wrenching is rushed and interspersed within an unexciting training montage.
Still, when not trying to be deep, the show is mindless lightweight fun. Self-referential jabs poke fun at the pitfalls and predictability of the superhero genre. The backdrop, Palm City, is nice to look at, corrupt without the grit of Gotham.
The Cape is riddled with plot-holes and inconsistencies. An epic battle rages in the kitchen of a busy restaurant, yet there are no cooks around; there is a major chemical disaster in the city, the repercussions of which are mentioned but never seen. With its fairly generic characters and been-done plot, the show is nothing like the cerebral character drama that was Heroes Season One. But it does not try to be, which might be its saving grace.
The Cape airs on NBC Mondays at 9, and full episodes are available on the show’s website at NBC.com
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