Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Riverdale
Last night I binge-watched the final episodes of the TV Series Riverdale.
Hollywood has long looked to comic books for inspiration witness the iterations of Batman and Superman over the years. Riverdale is a darker adaptation of the comic Archie from the funny papers. When the first photos of Keneti James (K.J.) Apa and Cole Spruce appeared online my immediate reaction was that I'd never conceived on Archie Andrews as a Hunk. With his Samoan/Kiwi Ancestry this carrot-topped Archie looks like a Sumo Wrestler in training. He makes Luke Perry, of 90210 fame, who plays his father Fred, look tiny by comparison. Indeed in opening scenes of episode one Kevin, Sheriff Keller's gay son lies on Betty's bed looking at the boy next door across the way observing that he has a six-pack. Yes, Riverdale has a gay charcter and Greg Araki directs an episode in season two. The only comic book character I'm missing is Flute Snoot, a characterization seemingly too politically incorrect for modern audiences. Principal Weatherbee may be bald but he lacks the rolly-polly look and is black. The other teachers on staff appear as cut-outs in classroom scenes.
Cole Spruce gets top billing as Jughead the narrator and moral conscience of the series. The son of a biker-The Serpents-father FP Jones from the wrong side of town. I had to look it up to discover that Jughead's birth name is Forsythe Pendleton Jones III, Scottish for "man of peace".
There may not have been a casting couch but the guys definitely posed topless for their casting reels. Archie may be ruggedly hunky but the rest of the football line-up look like cover models for a fitness mag and are given ample opportunity to show off their ripped abs. Kevin may be gay but no one is going to mess with him, least of all because of his father. Even Jughead knows how to throw a punch.
Whereas Archie was written for laughs Riverdale has an underlying feeling of menace and intrigue. It begins with the discovery of the body of red-headed albino-looking Jason Blossom who it turns out was murdered, his frozen body showing up in Sweetwater Creek with a bullet hole in its forehead. Veronica Lodge shows up looking like a member of the Adams Family with her mother and their butler Smithers running from the ignominy of father Hiram being jailed for swindling his clients.
The love triangle between Betty, Veronica and Archie is retained though complicated by Archie's affair with his nerdy Femme Fatale looking music teacher Miss Grundy. Most of the characters here have long since lost their innocence and their virginity. Riverdale has their own version of the Montagues and the Capulets or the Hatfields and the McCoys. Betty's older sister Polly Cooper violated that code by getting pregnant with Jason Blossom's baby.
Adults do not come off well here. Dysfunctional single-parent families appear to be the norm. Is Vermont the home of Riverdale? Maple syrup would appear to be the homegrown source of wealth and snowy Vancouver is filming location.
Teen love affairs are fleeting and keeping track of who's with whom is a full time job. Watching Fred take Miss Grundy and Archie out to dinner stretches credulity to the max. Since the restrictions on using children on movie sets put severe restraints on shooting schedules all the teens in this show are adults, indeed KJ, only 20, fell asleep at the wheel on the way home from one overlong shoot. He obviously isn't famous enough to date to rate his own chauffeur.
Whereas Archie and the crew by convention have remained eternally teens for 3/4 of a century their TV counterparts will graduate and move off to university breaking up their old gang and thus giving teenage high school dramas a limited shelf life. Even were this not so the adults who play these characters can only pretend to be teens for so long.
Hollywood has long looked to comic books for inspiration witness the iterations of Batman and Superman over the years. Riverdale is a darker adaptation of the comic Archie from the funny papers. When the first photos of Keneti James (K.J.) Apa and Cole Spruce appeared online my immediate reaction was that I'd never conceived on Archie Andrews as a Hunk. With his Samoan/Kiwi Ancestry this carrot-topped Archie looks like a Sumo Wrestler in training. He makes Luke Perry, of 90210 fame, who plays his father Fred, look tiny by comparison. Indeed in opening scenes of episode one Kevin, Sheriff Keller's gay son lies on Betty's bed looking at the boy next door across the way observing that he has a six-pack. Yes, Riverdale has a gay charcter and Greg Araki directs an episode in season two. The only comic book character I'm missing is Flute Snoot, a characterization seemingly too politically incorrect for modern audiences. Principal Weatherbee may be bald but he lacks the rolly-polly look and is black. The other teachers on staff appear as cut-outs in classroom scenes.
Cole Spruce gets top billing as Jughead the narrator and moral conscience of the series. The son of a biker-The Serpents-father FP Jones from the wrong side of town. I had to look it up to discover that Jughead's birth name is Forsythe Pendleton Jones III, Scottish for "man of peace".
There may not have been a casting couch but the guys definitely posed topless for their casting reels. Archie may be ruggedly hunky but the rest of the football line-up look like cover models for a fitness mag and are given ample opportunity to show off their ripped abs. Kevin may be gay but no one is going to mess with him, least of all because of his father. Even Jughead knows how to throw a punch.
Whereas Archie was written for laughs Riverdale has an underlying feeling of menace and intrigue. It begins with the discovery of the body of red-headed albino-looking Jason Blossom who it turns out was murdered, his frozen body showing up in Sweetwater Creek with a bullet hole in its forehead. Veronica Lodge shows up looking like a member of the Adams Family with her mother and their butler Smithers running from the ignominy of father Hiram being jailed for swindling his clients.
The love triangle between Betty, Veronica and Archie is retained though complicated by Archie's affair with his nerdy Femme Fatale looking music teacher Miss Grundy. Most of the characters here have long since lost their innocence and their virginity. Riverdale has their own version of the Montagues and the Capulets or the Hatfields and the McCoys. Betty's older sister Polly Cooper violated that code by getting pregnant with Jason Blossom's baby.
Adults do not come off well here. Dysfunctional single-parent families appear to be the norm. Is Vermont the home of Riverdale? Maple syrup would appear to be the homegrown source of wealth and snowy Vancouver is filming location.
Teen love affairs are fleeting and keeping track of who's with whom is a full time job. Watching Fred take Miss Grundy and Archie out to dinner stretches credulity to the max. Since the restrictions on using children on movie sets put severe restraints on shooting schedules all the teens in this show are adults, indeed KJ, only 20, fell asleep at the wheel on the way home from one overlong shoot. He obviously isn't famous enough to date to rate his own chauffeur.
Whereas Archie and the crew by convention have remained eternally teens for 3/4 of a century their TV counterparts will graduate and move off to university breaking up their old gang and thus giving teenage high school dramas a limited shelf life. Even were this not so the adults who play these characters can only pretend to be teens for so long.
