f13.net

It's Archie Comics mixed with Twin Peaks. It's like a trainwreck I couldn't take my eyes off of, which is pretty funny considering that in the first episode Archie is laying the pipe to Ms. Grundy.

I saw the trailer for it and just WTFed my way into never watching it.

Wait, so it actually IS that Riverdale? I saw a commercial for it and thought, "well that's an odd choice for a name since its so antithetical to Archie."

The fuck?

Yes, it's a CW'ing modern reimagining of the Archie Comics as a dark murder mystery-ish thing.

Your What the Fuck should be the default response to this for anyone over 30.

So if I never read those Archie comics it should be fine watching it (its not like German Netflix gives us that much to choose from)?

It came on after Supernatural I think so I saw about 20 minutes of it.  It weird and made me feel angsty.

Yes. I barely know archie and I'm probably going to watch this because I like shows most of F13 hates

I only vaguely remember reading a couple of Archie comics way back in the day, I plan on waiting and binging it when there is a full season.

--Dave

I read Archie comics and quite enjoyed this. I know it's hipster cool to hate on stuff like this but fuck it. It wasn't perfect but it was definitely kind of a fun re-imagining and it has the full involvement of the current head of the Archie comic books, so there's that.

Wasn't hating on it I was just amazed at the turn of tone. Thus my "wtf."

It's like the Teletubbies doing a grimdark reboot where they are gay and on drugs so its a Trainspotting/ Rent/ Teletubbies mash-up.

But it's really just another case of, "building a new brand takes work. Let's just reuse this existing one..."

Are you telling me that the teletubbies aren't gay and on drugs? What do you think that sparkly stuff in Tinky Winky's purse is? If that ain't molly....

--Dave

The Archie comics have lately become pretty interesting testbeds for concept-reinterpretation, so this is just following on that. It's not like you could put a true-to-the-60s Archie show up on TV today--it would look stupid, partly because it would in fact *be* stupid.

I don't think it's only "lately." I remember Archie comics with aliens, spy stories, the Christian propaganda one that existed mostly to push weekly tithing (Betty, of course, was the role model), and way more. It's always been a format that lent itself to that sort of thing. Just now they are pushing it farther.

Archie comics through the 00's and 10's has already embraced the "grimdark" reboot concept wholeheartedly. There have been zombie issues where pretty much everybody got turned (with EC comics level gore), an issue where Archie took a bullet for a gay friend, time travel issues (featuring the Ramones!)...

Haven't seen Riverdale yet, but now it's on my must watch list.