Riverdale: Discussion Thread

[Bright Eyes]

I just hope it's a hit for KJ Apa's sake. He was wonderful on Shortland Street. He deserves to be a star.

[lovely_m]

I saw this and thought that it was a C+ pilot at best and didn't deserve the label critically acclaimed.  I seriously have no idea what the critics saw in this other than a desperate need for a non-supernatural teen show or they lowered their standards for this type of show. 

 

Did Berlanti see the Funny or Die Edgy Archie and not get the joke or did he just want to have an alternate universe Archie fanfic come to life? 

 

I had my problems with it, but there was enough good for me see if it improves.

Edited January 28, 2017 by lovely_m
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[Soapsuds]

Luke Perry was on The View promoting it on Friday. Gawd he has not aged well.

[cassadine1991]

Cole Sprouse with the dark hair, damn...

 

KJ as a redhead is also whoa...

 

I do love that Ashleigh Murray who plays Josie was a fan of the Archie comics.

 

Isn't one of the showrunners also one of the heads of Archie Comics?

The girl playing Cheryl resembles Holland Roden a lot, had to do a double take

[DRW50]

I don’t really expect anything from Greg Berlanti, but I’m saddened that Archie Comics would take a character they created to try to show diversity and acceptance and, at a time when racism is more openly accepted and encouraged than it has been in a number of years, retool him as some walking stereotype for white viewers to feel comfortable hating, laughing at, seeing get tortured, and so on. But at least we have all those other great characterizations for black men or black people on television...

Yet I imagine I’ll still have to read endless articles about how diverse this show is...

[cassadine1991]

I am surprised we haven't seen Kevin flirt with Archie

[DRW50]

 

Surely we have enough scenes of one-note bitchy gays pining over straight men.

[cassadine1991]

since this show is "dark", I'm waiting for one of them to corner Archie in the locker room. 

[All My Shadows]

I've been waiting for this show for a few months now. Never was into the Archie stuff - I think my generation just wasn't exposed to it much at all outside of Sabrina (and, to a lesser extent, Josie), but I'm always interested in teen dramas, especially the increasingly rare non-fantasy/non-scifi variety. I haven't watched a single episode yet, and the reviews aren't making me want to use my precious TV time on it just yet.

But Cole Sprouse is going to end being enough to make me want to tune in, I just know it.

[frequentsoapfan]

Cole Sprouse's acting made me cringe in this 

[Soaplovers]

For me....ditch Archie...and just focus on betty and Veronica.

[Vee]

I never watch CW shows these days. And this show was so agonizingly hip in the early-going it was too painful to keep up with - the generational cast is very talented and the faux-Twin Peaks aesthetic worked for it but the scripts tried way, way too hard and yet often stayed pretty thin. (A little Cheryl Blossom also went a long, long way)

 

Now that I've soldiered through to the halfway point I find it a lot more interesting, in part because the focus on the parents has increased. Marisol Nichols, a late '90s/early 2000s starlet who had bit parts in stuff like Scream 2 and was touted as one of the bright young things in that period but never quite made it, is really good as Hermione - she's weathered but she's got real grace, facets and a lot of chemistry with old Luke Perry, who I am shocked to find hot on the show. More importantly, every character is getting fleshing out - Josie and her Pussycats are becoming more than just archetypes, and even if the one Archie is becoming involved with (Valerie? Valorie?) is a bit wooden she's still appealing. And Mädchen Amick, who is lightyears away from her Twin Peaks role, sells everything but is also slowly becoming less of a cardboard shrew. It's also lovely to see Robin Givens, whose character is caught between being a typical Robin Givens imperious type and fending off her ass of a husband.

 

Far from a great show, but it's diverting with a cute cast and it's got a lot more meat on the bone now if the writing doesn't go too shrill again. We'll see. I'm not done.

Edited April 14, 2017 by Vee

[Vee]

Still the only one (slowly) watching this - the older characters are continuing to deepen and hook me in more*. Luke Perry does really great work as the steadily more beleaguered Fred, and Skeet Ulrich is actually really good as F.P. the antihero/villain. Mädchen Amick's character, Betty's mother, finally gains real dimension and pathos when it's revealed her husband (Lochlyn Munro) made her get an abortion. Mädchen can always play just about anything.

 

(* - the Riverdale boys in tank tops at the rock quarry did not hurt either)

[MichaelGL]

I've been watching the show for quite some time now, I like that they've FINALLY given Betty's mom more dimension, from her modest background to the abortion she had. More of this please. 

[Vee]

Been binging (binge-ing? bingeing?) through to episode 11 and I have to say the show still steadily improves, despite the usual superficial/tryhard CW soap trappings. I think I saw whatever is coming with Betty from the second or third episode with the unfortunate quarterback/roofie incident, but they have wisely split the focus more and more between the kids (who are mostly great, especially Camila Mendes as Veronica) and the adults, namely Perry, Mädchen Amick, Marisol Nichols, the ever more prominent and appealing Skeet Ulrich (who has excellent chemistry with Amick, whose character appears to be a fellow "South Sider" made good) and now, apparently, Molly Ringwald. I'm always happy to see her turn up in something for a hit of nostalgia but I gotta say Ringwald is a lot frumpier here than I remember her being in other recent work and interviews.

 

The Blossoms are still way too much for me, especially Cheryl, but they are starting to dig into them a bit as the reveal starts coming. It's very surreal for me watching this show as its Twin Peaks roots grow much more evident and obvious and the story gets darker, and as Mädchen Amick's character grows more and more important when the return of the actual TP is a week ago - while Archie, Veronica, etc. play at being the same kind of teen detectives as we saw on that show with Lara Flynn Boyle, James Marshall, etc.

 

There are issues - the gay kids are still too shrill and typed, the tryhard moments with the Blossoms or certain dialogue still pop up off and on, and I saw the super-swift dismissal of Archie's relationship with one of the more wooden Pussycats coming a mile away as the characters of color (sans Veronica) are now relegated to support players again. But the show's enjoyable and diverting enough with its cast - and the plotlines are getting richer and more nuanced - that I am going to stick with it unless the finale seriously [!@#$%^&*] up. It helps that the adult characters are so prominent and that these '80s/'90s teen stars have gained such gravitas in their age, especially Luke Perry and Skeet Ulrich. And it helps most of all that in the main teen leads, the boys (Archie, Jughead) are the sensitive ingenues in the story - the girls are the prime movers.