Thursday, January 15, 2009

The Beast, "Pilot": Open thread

I had my say on the pilot for "The Beast" in Tuesday's column, but for those of you who tuned in, what did you think?

10 comments:

Shambala said...

do u think season 3 of the wire is better once u know who marlo is?? wat i mean is watchin season 3 the second time is more rewarding then the first time because marlo and his crew are characters instead of some opposition soley in place for conflct with avon

Alan Sepinwall said...

By "open thread," I just meant "I'm not going to write my own review of this episode." We're here to talk about "The Beast."

I'll set up another "Ask Alan questions"-type post once I'm back from press tour and actually have time to answer them.

Anonymous said...

The good: Swayze. The visuals. The music. Fimmel in the episode's second half.

The bad: the byzantine, confusing plotting. I can't understand what Barker is involved in. Fimmel in the first half. The reveal on the train, and the events that result. C'mon. Dude does that, he's got to be finished.

Anonymous said...

substandard show for this blog to cover...can't imagine its going to last more than one short season

UnwantedTouching said...

Swayze! I couldn't help but feel the show was overall an exercise in style rather than substance. That said, I was entertained enough that I'll come back to it, particularly to see Swayze chew up some more scenery. It was interesting to see the actor who played Barksdale on The Wire and the actor who played Blade on the Spike TV series (still with the same snarl), but their scenes, particularly the trailer scene, seemed a bit confusing to me.

The other thing that really bothered me was how over-the-top it was. FBI agents getting Swayze's protege to smoke drugs, and in particular, Swayze firing the rocket out of the gangster's window went a little too far for me, almost pushing the show into camp. Not a plus for what I think the show is aiming for.

I did love the scene at the end when Swayze is so excited because his protege "got it." I love his grizzled nature!

Rev/Views said...

I just watched it, found myself 'umming' and 'ahing' for a long time while wondering what the point to the show was.

Then the last six mins or so kicked in and the show came into focus, I'm rather impressed now. It could go places and Swayze is very, very good in this.

Shambala said...

is swayze didnt have cancer would u like this show? are u just bein nice?i mean really how good can it be

Manton said...

I didn't see it, but I'm pretty sure that critics are going to do their jobs and not worry about hurting someone's feelings, regardless of their health status.

ripvanruben said...

I really enjoyed it. I love this kind of story and this is well done.

Anonymous said...

The main draw for me was it's filmed in Chicago (my hometown). So that's what I tuned in for and, unfortunately, that's all I got out of it.
The pretty boy actor was so awful he was distracting, and his story line was even worse.
I have much love for Swayze, but I don't think that's going to be enough. I was excited to see the actor who played D in "The Wire," but I don't get his character.
I'll probably watch the next episodes to see if I can identify more spots in Chicago until that DiCaprio lookalike annoys me.