The Cape

[TheWalrus]

Season opener was pretty cool. Having Vinnie Jones, Keith David and Summer Glau in your show automatically ups the cool factor by ten though. I'll definitely keep watching this one.

The Cape

[WayAbvPar]

I saw about 15 minutes of this right in the middle (around when Keith David got shot). Can someone fill me in on the premise? Is it a non-magical/super world like reality, or are there actual superhuman superheroes? I was trying to grok WTF was going on with his cape doing funking CGI stuff.

Summer Glau hasn't aged as well as I would have hoped, or her makeup job was bad. 

[Johny Cee]

I saw about 15 minutes of this right in the middle (around when Keith David got shot). Can someone fill me in on the premise? Is it a non-magical/super world like reality, or are there actual superhuman superheroes? I was trying to grok WTF was going on with his cape doing funking CGI stuff.

Summer Glau hasn't aged as well as I would have hoped, or her makeup job was bad. 

Only watched the first episode, but....

Seems to be pretty firmly in the Charles Atlas Superpower category, i.e. hanging a training/technology figleaf on what is essentially superhuman powers.  The cape is supposed to be tech, and he had a training montage on how to use a weighted cape as a weapon.  He can disappear by using a smokebomb as a distraction, but that doesn't explain how no one sees him go from where he was to where he pops up.

[Sky]

I put this on out of curiosity and made it about five minutes in. The most cliched and contrived claptrap I've seen in a while. Horrid writing, horrid acting, no reason to watch any further.

[Bzalthek]

I put this on out of curiosity and made it about five minutes in. The most cliched and contrived claptrap I've seen in a while. Horrid writing, horrid acting, no reason to watch any further.

This

It's like spawn if you replaced the hordes of hell with wannabe carnies.

[Sky]

Actually, I could tell as soon as I saw the casting of the 'bad cops' straight out of central casting. The sheer speed they tried to slap together a backstory and here's this website with a mysterious guy who knows everything and says those two cops right there, yeah the goony looking ones, they're bad, one minute later they've killed the chief so private security is taking over and are you in or out. Holy shit that was bad. And it was maybe five minutes.

[Johny Cee]

Actually, I could tell as soon as I saw the casting of the 'bad cops' straight out of central casting. The sheer speed they tried to slap together a backstory and here's this website with a mysterious guy who knows everything and says those two cops right there, yeah the goony looking ones, they're bad, one minute later they've killed the chief so private security is taking over and are you in or out. Holy shit that was bad. And it was maybe five minutes.

I was willing to give this a pass (as stupid as it was) since pilots are traditionally not very good, and they had to establish everything in one hour.  And Keith David, who is the fucking man.  The tone and acting is pretty bad...  some actors are playing it straight up cheese/camp (villain, Vinnie Jones), some folks are Batman serious (lead), some folks are pulling a Burton Batman vibe (Keith David & Carney Folk), and some people are just lost (Summer).  


It's a show that will either find it's legs and turn into something decent in the first season, or go completely off the rails and get canceled.

Edit:

It really makes me miss the awesomeness of the Timm/Dini animated DC shows.  I don't understand why, if you wanted to make a superhero show, you wouldn't steal the shit out of those.

[Der Helm]

I feel like I had just watched an 60 minutes trailer of an upcoming movie. But I think I was entertained. 

[Raging Turtle]

They just showed the pilot again tonight.  Everything was rushed, but it's entertaining pulp.  Something to watch on Hulu if I'm bored. 

And whoever said Summer Glau didn't age well is insane. 

[HaemishM]

Not entertaining. It was complete shit. Carny folk as bad ass ninja jedi mentor? The magic cape? Vinnie Jones in some of the worst makeup I've ever seen? The pilot was so badly written, badly paced, badly conceived and badly acted, I can't believe I made it through the first hour. That needed to be two hours long and well, not shit. Keith David was good with really bad lines. Everyone else sucked ass.

[Malakili]

Generally unimpressed.  I'm willing to get it about 2 more episodes before I write it off completely though.  I'd rather watch this than another cop, lawyer, or hospital show at least.

[Tebonas]

I was somewhat entertained. Nothing I would stay home to watch, but not much competition for my two episodes per day I need for my rowing time.

[Gruntle]

It's a trainwreck but an amusing one; a show that seems to be aware of its own crappy writing and mostly having fun with it.
Except for the treatment of the main character who is just about every cliche but doesn't wink at it.

[Slyfeind]

Edit:

It really makes me miss the awesomeness of the Timm/Dini animated DC shows.  I don't understand why, if you wanted to make a superhero show, you wouldn't steal the shit out of those.

Dini moved on to Tower Prep, which, while almost Disney-sitcom-esque in depth, has a lot more style and is much more passable as a live-action-superhero show.

[Threash]

This show set out to be a comic book, which it succeeded mostly.  The only problem was that it was a bland boring unimaginative comic book.  I had a hard time seeing the kid as "normal" after playing an autistic kid in Flashfoward.

[Riggswolfe]

I watched it with the wife. I enjoyed some parts of it but some dialogue literally made me wince. Like when Keith David said "We are the carnival of crime!" I was going....dear god....Keith....what happened to your career?

Still, I'll probably watch it for a bit since it kind of reminds me of the noirish type of superhero, ala Batman or the Shadow.

[Sand]

I put this on out of curiosity and made it about five minutes in. The most cliched and contrived claptrap I've seen in a while. Horrid writing, horrid acting, no reason to watch any further.

So its like they remade "Heroes but sans the cheerleader.

[Oban]

What was wrong with Summer Glau? 

Her wardrobe seems a tad conservative sure, but I did not notice anything wrong with her face.

[FatuousTwat]

Was I the only one who was distracted by the terrible CGI they used on the cape?

[Margalis]

I turned it on for about five seconds, heard a guy say something like "times have changed, man!" then turned it off.

[Raging Turtle]

Was I the only one who was distracted by the terrible CGI they used on the cape?

That didn't help things, but my expectations were pretty low going in. 

Again, it's Hulu-worthy, if nothing else. 

[Draegan]

Is this better or worse than The Event?

[HaemishM]

Worse, but at least it only takes you about 5 minutes to figure that out.

[Nevermore]

I had this on Tivo and just got around to watching it.  Holy crap was this awful.  I mean, after reading the premise way back when the '10 TV shows were announced it looked like it was almost assuredly going to be a stupid show, but they really outdid themselves.  Poorly written, poor acted, CGI so bad it was distracting and edited in such a way to make the pacing horrible.  It's a given that superhero type stuff will have plot holes but the holes in what passes for a plot in this drek were so enormous it's a wonder any kind of story could hold together at all.

It wouldn't surprise me if this show doesn't make it past this month.

[Hoax]

Watched the pilot last night, I thought it was shockingly bad just one of those, how did this get made its so clearly terrible type moments. Chess? The Cape? The talk to his son bit at the end? Summer Glau's entire part? It was like they were ripping off Eyes Only from Dark Angel and somehow making the concept more stupid. At one point he just asks her out of the blue to do some impossible shit and she's like "I'm on it because I have virtual computer screens in front of me and the flashing lights mean I can do anything!"

[Mrbloodworth]

I find it highly suspect that..

[Nevermore]

Wait, that's the only thing you found highly suspect?  Not the part where everyone assumed faux Batman died in the explosion even though there was a giant fucking hole in the ground?  Or how our intrepid hero disguises himself with what amounts to a hoodie yet no one recognizes him?

Those two were just off the top of my head from seeing pilot and doesn't even include the magic computer powers River suddenly gets that someone else already mentioned.

[Mrbloodworth]

Never said only, but this is a super hero tale here :)

[Evildrider]

Or how our intrepid hero disguises himself with what amounts to a hoodie yet no one recognizes him?

Yet thats way more of a disguise then Superman/Clark Kent.

[Nevermore]

Yet thats way more of a disguise then Superman/Clark Kent.

It's not 1932 anymore.

[Draegan]

Worse, but at least it only takes you about 5 minutes to figure that out.

I watched the first two episodes over the weekend and this is no way nearly as awful as The Event.  You're insane.

[HaemishM]

Unless the second episode of the Cape got DRASTICALLY better than the first, I stand by my statement. At least The Event kept me coming back for a few episodes for nothing more than the reveal about who the detainees were.

[Xuri]

The Cape is... better than Flash Gordon. 

[Draegan]

Unless the second episode of the Cape got DRASTICALLY better than the first, I stand by my statement. At least The Event kept me coming back for a few episodes for nothing more than the reveal about who the detainees were.

The Event was definitely worse in acting, writing, plot development and every other standard that I can think of.

[DLRiley]

You have to see it to believe folks. This. Is. Bad. Really, really, really bad. I mean how many shows beg the question "What the fuck is wrong with the cameraman?"