Topic: Riverdale

Any other Sliders fans here also fans of Archie comics and/or the new Riverdale show, which is based on the comics? I've been an Archie fan almost my whole life, and it is cool to see a show (other than animated) with the characters. The show is on Netflix (each episode the day after its show on on CW) if you're interested in seeing it.

Discontinue reading if you don't want spoilers-


My thoughts on episode 1, which aired last night...

I enjoyed it. It's more of the dark side of the characters (which is interesting since the characters are generally very squeaky clean throughout their history). I generally like the humor portions/versions of the comics (especially the older dan DeCarlo/Harry Lucey/Sam Schwartz/ Bob Montana versions), but this is nice being different. Some of the characters are spot on with their looks and personalities, others are changed... Like why does Archie's parents have to be separated?

All the actors and actresses did a great job, lots of energy.

My biggest issue with the show is the Ms Grundy character, which is completely different from her comic book version... Everything else I'm ok with, at least for now.

I'm able to separate the show from the comics and other mediums of the characters in the past. I look at this show as just another alternate reality for the characters, and will look forward to each new episode. I hope it does well. I do think this show is significantly better (at least so far) than the reboot comics that Archie has out out over the last year or so.

Re: Riverdale

I like RIVERDALE so far. It's like DAWSON'S CREEK: earnestly melodramatic, capturing both a sincere sense of sexuality without being lewd or tawdry, beautifully filmed, touching on both the innocence of the characters and the maturity of the situations around themselves as they grow up. I can't say how faithful it is to the comics as I've never read them, but in terms of DAWSON style dramedy, the approach seems suited to the characters on the show.

Re: Riverdale

Episode 2 was pretty good as well. Show packs a lot into a single episode both times so far. Looking forward to seeing where it all goes. Enjoying it for what it is rather than nitpicking everything that isn't classic Archie (which is quite a lot).

Re: Riverdale

Watched episode 6 (the most recent) today. The show continues to be very interesting. So much happens each episode, it's hard to believe it's only 6 episodes in.

Re: Riverdale

I haven't seen the show yet. I might watch it after the season ends, on Netflix.

The comment about so much happening in one episode worries me though. It's a trend these days, to burn through as much story as possible, in as short amount of time as possible. I see it done all the time now, and it usually doesn't work for me. I like to sink into a story. I like thee to be some room for scenes to play out and characters to have their moments. Too many shows these days burn through scenes without allowing them to breathe, and it takes away from the whole story.

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Re: Riverdale

It was just announced today it's being renewed for a second season! Yay!

Informant, that worries me a bit, too, but it works well so far. There's a huge cast and it seems each episode is focused on particular minor characters for that episode as well as the regulars. And there are a LOT of characters.

Re: Riverdale

Riverdale is the first of my "catch up over the summer" shows. I'm two episodes in right now. It's funny, because I thought the show had been on all season, so I was expecting 22 or 23 episodes. It seems weird that the show only has 13. I feel like I've been seeing commercials for it for much longer than that.

I don't read the comics, so I don't know the characters. What I can say so far is that the show is pretty interesting. I like the dark vibe of the series, which you wouldn't expect from an Archie series. Since I don't read the comics, I don't know whether or not the show actually needed to be related to Archie. If the tone is dramatically different, couldn't they have just made it a whole new thing?

Right now, two episodes into the series, my biggest complaint is the fact that Archie is in a relationship with his teacher. I'm over this trope on TV. It was edgy on Dawson's Creek, but now it's on every show that's set in high school, and it's getting to a point where it seems an awful lot like we're accepting this sort of behavior. On Pretty Little Liars, it's played as a true romantic relationship, rather than a form of abuse. The whole thing is really disgusting to me. I'm sure that kids love watching this stuff and imagining how mature it all is, but it's not. And we shouldn't keep telling them that it is.

But as I said, I'm only two episodes in. For all I know, the show does this story properly and shows the teacher as being manipulative, and completely in the wrong here.

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Re: Riverdale

Glad you're giving the show a shot. Stick with it.

First season is 13 episodes, it was just renewed for a full season of 22 starting in the fall.

Re: Riverdale

Finished!

The teacher was hinted at as being a predator, but in a sort of indirect way. I would have preferred that lesson to be more firmly learned.

As for the finale, I thought it was good, but there were a few beats that felt a bit awkward.

Why would Jughead take the jacket? It didn't feel like something he'd do unless he wanted to go undercover for some reason.

Why wasn't Cheryl hospitalized? If someone I knew tried to drown herself like that, I would call 911 or take her to the hospital, not warm her up and send her on her way. Did these kids not see Thirteen Reasons Why?!

It seemed like the shot of Fred on the ground at the end was added to avoid a "Was Archie shot?" cliffhanger, but I'm not sure why. That cliffhanger was clearly set up and they should have ended with the exterior shot of the diner.

Overall, it's a fun show. I'm already wondering how long it will take for Sabrina the teenage witch to show up.

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Re: Riverdale

Informant wrote:

Finished!

The teacher was hinted at as being a predator, but in a sort of indirect way. I would have preferred that lesson to be more firmly learned.

As for the finale, I thought it was good, but there were a few beats that felt a bit awkward.

Why would Jughead take the jacket? It didn't feel like something he'd do unless he wanted to go undercover for some reason.

Why wasn't Cheryl hospitalized? If someone I knew tried to drown herself like that, I would call 911 or take her to the hospital, not warm her up and send her on her way. Did these kids not see Thirteen Reasons Why?!

It seemed like the shot of Fred on the ground at the end was added to avoid a "Was Archie shot?" cliffhanger, but I'm not sure why. That cliffhanger was clearly set up and they should have ended with the exterior shot of the diner.

Overall, it's a fun show. I'm already wondering how long it will take for Sabrina the teenage witch to show up.


I'm really not sure what the whole point of the teacher relationship storyline was. I thought it might be a setup for something later, but never heard from again... Weird. Definitely the weakest the part of the show, in my opinion.

Jughead taking the jacket surprised me, too. While Cole as Jughead is certainly a good match as far as looking like the comic book counterpart, and Jughead himself being Archie's friend and being a bit different is also accurate, he's definitely the furthest removed from source material accuracy in all other ways. So he's going to be hard to predict. He seems to be one of, if not the, most popular character in the show on fan sites/social media, though.

Cheryl's actions do seem to be played down more than they would in real life.

The end scene does make for a good cliffhanger, I just hope the show doesn't jump the shark with it.

Sabrina would be awesome! I sure hope so.

Re: Riverdale

I'm really curious to see how Sabrina would work in this world. She can't be overtly magical, but she could have intuition and be a mystic type.

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Re: Riverdale

Maybe Sabrina would be magical on her own show, but when appearing on RIVERDALE, she never overtly uses magic on camera and the RIVERDALE characters think she's just a stage magician.

Re: Riverdale

I guess we're about to find out how Sabrina would work.  The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is in development as a companion series.

Re: Riverdale

Should be interesting. I'm curious to see how Riverdale holds up in season 2.

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Re: Riverdale

KJ Apa, who plays Archie (one of the lead roles) was in a car accident recently (no injury other than the car itself, thank goodness), after apparently falling asleep while driving home after a 16 hour day.

One of several articles you can find about this:

http://deadline.com/2017/09/riverdale-k … 202174795/

Re: Riverdale

Archie Comics and CW just announced another Archie universe based series, "Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina", coming in the 2018-2019 season. Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina is a recent horror comic book series. Looking forward to it as well.

Re: Riverdale

I'm glad to hear that he is okay. My initial reaction was to wonder if he simply chose to drive himself, rather than use another production-provided method of transportation. However, Tom Welling was in a similar situation on Smallville and it took the rest of the cast writing a letter to get him a driver.

The hours are insane on these productions. I've done really crazy weeks from time to time, but then I get to take some time off and recharge. The main cast and crew don't have that luxury. Especially the crew, who work no matter who is in a scene. You can always tell the difference between the start of their work week and the end.

Normal network seasons are 22+ episodes, and that catches up to these productions very quickly, even with insane hours. Maybe the solution is to shorten seasons a little and film those seasons entirely before airing them at all, the way you see on cable and streaming services. That would relieve the scheduling pressure, but not the money pressure. I don't know if there is a great solution. It is a brutal industry to work in. They can provide drivers, but there are tons of crew members, cast members and even extras. So door to door rides aren't realistic for everyone. And even if they were, you can't force someone to sit on a bus for two hours if they want to try to drive home in five minutes. Tricky.

I'm not usually a big supporter of Hollywood union bullsh-t, but this type of situation is where they might actually come in handy.

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18 (edited by Surf Dance Chris 2017-12-16 07:55:02)

Re: Riverdale

The midseason finale was shown this last Wednesday. What does everyone think?

I feel it was kind of anticlimactic, but maybe it’s because it’s a midseason finale rather than a season finale. Still good, though, and looking forward to more.

I hope the Black Hood “character” doesn’t get revisited, it seemed a little too out there for me for this show. The first season’s murder mystery seemed a little more “realistic”.

The show’s popularity continues to grow at an astonishing rate, I’m pretty sure it’ll get at least a 3rd season.

Re: Riverdale

The show is interesting, but I think it's appeal will wear off before long. The original mystery drove the show in season 1, but as with most shows, it feels like they're now stretching to keep it going. It's not really bad, but it could reach a breaking point if they're not careful.

One thing that I find weird is how teen shows are handled today. When I was younger, it wasn't as common to show kids drinking, taking drugs or having sex. It wasn't that they avoided those things, but that those things were seen as things that kid's shouldn't be doing, so it was shown less, and usually with more consequences. Today's shows treat kids like they're adults. School and parents aren't huge factors, and parents with authority are even more rare. They drink like fish, and do drugs without the writers making any fuss over it. And sex is handled with much less weight.

I'm not trying to be all square about it or anything. I'm just commenting on the way that tv writing has evolved, for better or worse.

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Re: Riverdale

RIVERDALE is no racier or 'adult' than DAWSON'S CREEK in Season 1 in 1998.

Re: Riverdale

Dawson's Creek pushed some boundaries, but when they did a story about a teacher sleeping with one of her students, it was a big deal. Today you'd have a hard time finding a high school show where a teacher isn't sleeping with a student. I'm talking about the tv landscape as a whole, not just Riverdale. If you look at a show like Pretty Little Liars, the relationship isn't even seen as a bad thing.

On Riverdale, we have a sixteen years old girl performing a striptease, and nobody seems to think that it's weird. Veronica is drinking scotch with her parents.

Teen shows have always done things that were more mature than they should, but it seems like it's become less of a teachable moment, and more of the norm.

It's also possible that my perception of these elements has changed and it's now weird for me to see someone Josie's age giving sexy performances because I'm just old. However, I did always wonder why Buffy's mother let her wear some of those short skirts back in the day. smile

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Re: Riverdale

I don't know what to tell you except to reiterate: all your examples of 'adult' content in RIVERDALE's first season and now it's second are to be found in DAWSON'S CREEK's first two seasons.

Re: Riverdale

I guess. Like I said, it's probably my change in perspective from being one of the kids, to being one of the adults. Now I'm thinking that Betty's mother should have yanked her off that stage, put a coat on her and dragged her ass home, where she would spend the next three years being grounded.

These kids today... smile

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Re: Riverdale

I think part of it is that it’s a little strange to see the Archie comic characters doing these things, when in the past, they were mostly squeaky clean. The characters in the show are younger than their comic books counterparts (probably so they can stretch the show as long as possible, since it’s being shown in real time-ish as opposed to always the same age [17/18] since 1941).

I don’t think this show is any racier than the original 90210 series, which I think started them as either freshmen or sophomores aback in the early 1990s.

While the first season worked fine as a murder mystery, the Black hood concept was not quite as good, and I kinda wish it had gone in a different direction, what direction, I don’t know, maybe a little more care free and less super serious. It still has a lot of great moments and I’m enjoyong it a lot, as long as I seperate the show from the comics, both are enjoyable despite being vastly different.

Re: Riverdale

This would be an interesting topic, if I ever decide to start a YouTube channel. I could go back and watch some of the shows that I watched as a kid, and see if/how my perception of them has changed.

But I don't remember Brenda Walsh performing a striptease at 16, with her mother in the audience.

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Re: Riverdale

That would certainly be an interesting topic. It’s strange how shows like Seinfled or Married With Children, two amazingly popular shows of its time, would not be able to be done today due to being too edgy. Yet shows like Orange Is the New Black, an amazingly popular show today, would never get made 20 years ago since at the time it would be considered too edgy. And then there’s a show like Three’s Company, popular but quite controversial back when it was made, is now an all ages show and quite tame today.

Re: Riverdale

Are any of the characters on this show supposed to be likable anymore? This season has gone way off the deep end. It's worse than some of the crap that happened in the second season of Friday Night Lights.

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Re: Riverdale

It does seem strange the way they’re handing all the character personalities. This show keeps me entertained and it is full of surprises, but I wonder why Archie Comics has allowed their brand to be this twisted in the show, and so different from the source material, yet strangely faithful in certain other ways.

Re: Riverdale

I guess it's kept my interest more than some shows this year, but they just keep digging that hole deeper. At this point, Betty is a cyber-callgirl who performed a striptease for a bunch of aging bikers, and helped her prostitute brother and her mother cover up a murder... And she's the good girl on the show!

Last year, the show was dark and moody, but the core characters still seemed pretty solid. This year, Jughead is cutting skin off of a woman's arm. It's insane. smile

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Re: Riverdale

This show  is filmed in Vancouver. I wonder if it has any filming locations in common with Sliders? I haven’t noticed anything that seemed familiar.

Re: Riverdale

This show continues to surprise me. The recent episode of Carrie the Musical was kinda bizarre. I’m no fan of musicals, but it was okay. Only 3 episodes left of season 2.

Side note: anyone see the new Mad Magazine volume 2 #1? Has an Archie/Riverdale spoof that’s pretty hilarious.

Re: Riverdale

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina has announced it debuts the first 10 episodes on Netflix on October 26. I suspect it will also  be a big hit.

Re: Riverdale

I hope Sabrina is good. Riverdale has turned into a mess, so it'd be nice to have a good show to replace it with. smile

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Re: Riverdale

My God. RIVERDALE used to be about high school students in a small town. Now it's this... I don't know, horror-crime show with supernatural overtones investigating a homicidal version of DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS and... what?

Re: Riverdale

Reading ARCHIE comics is a very interesting exploration of SLIDERS-esque storytelling. ARCHIE comics have an interesting approach to continuity: there isn't any. There's a core title, ARCHIE (started in 2015 with Mark Waid writing it), featuring young adult high school dramedy with Archie being a clumsy, well-intentioned kid with a peculiar best friend in Jughead and Betty being a tomboy mechanic with an eccentric friendship with the regal and elite Veronica.

Then there's the JUGHEAD title written by Chip Zdarsky in which Jughead finds himself on a date with Sabrina the Teenaged Witch, a storyline that isn't reflected in the core ARCHIE title. When Sabrina appears in the ARCHIE title, it doesn't acknowledge her JUGHEAD plotline at all and she meets the ARCHIE cast for the first time again and is dating Archie. There's a SABRINA THE TEENAGED WITCH title in which Sabrina is in her own town, irreconcilable with ARCHIE.

Then there's the ancillary titles. BETTY AND VERONICA: VIXENS has the two girls starting a biker gang. It has a completely different version of the Betty and Veronica friendship in the main title. There's JUGHEAD: THE HUNGER in which Jughead is revealed to be part of a lineage of werewolves, hence his voracious hunger for hamburgers. It kills off a large number of the cast, it reveals Betty to be the latest in a family line of werewolf hunters; this isn't reflected in any other title. There's VAMPIRONICA, in which Veronica is transformed into a vampire and then she later travels to a parallel universe where she meets the werewolf Jughead from JUGHEAD: THE HUNGER.

There's ARCHIE VS. PREDATOR where all but two cast members are murdered by the Predator; this appears to be a series finale to the 'classic' ARCHIE comics as the surviving Betty and Veronica refer to various events in the original comics and travel into the parallel universe of the 2015 reboot.

The horror line also has CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA and AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE, two very dark versions of the characters which haven't been appearing regularly in comic stores as the writer has been working on RIVERDALE. Interestingly, there's a series, JUGHEAD: TIME POLICE where 2015 reboot Jughead discovers that the classic version of Jughead has become evil and been gathering Jugheads from parallel universes.

One of these Jugheads is the RIVERDALE incarnation who wears a Serpents leather jacket and delivers an overwrought monologue describing the war of Jugheads only to be interrupted when he's knocked unconscious.

What's interesting is that despite the light and dark and sci-fi variations on these titles, Archie, Jughead, Betty and Veronica remain the same characters, simply in different situations and with different choices before them even if those choices involve summer jobs in one universe or time and space in another.

Re: Riverdale

Spoiler warning























Season 6 opened in a parallel universe, revealing that an explosion in the S5 finale had ripped open the walls of reality and created an alternate version of Riverdale called Rivervale that was defined by supernatural and occult forces. After five episodes, the situation was explained and we returned to the supposedly non-supernatural Riverdale --

And due to some aftereffect of the extradimensional energies that were unleashed, Archie and Betty are now manifesting superpowers. Archie now has invulnerability and super strength and Betty is developing psychic powers.

...

This all works for me. So long as the characters' personalities are present, RIVERDALE thrives on shifting from dramedy to serial killer hunting to crime drama to horror to occult roleplay to cults to paranormal investigations to supernatural horror to superheroes.

I'm sure there are plenty who will disengage or simply be unwilling or unable to accept such turns of narrative because genre shifts within a single series can be unsettling. Some will go so far as to declare that genre shifts within a series are "creatively bankrupt 100%" just because it's outside the previous boundaries of the series. But for me, if the genre shifts serve the characters and are written with awareness and a genuine love for whatever the genre is, it can work, unlike, say, the clumsy MAD MAX and DRACULA ripoffs of SLIDERS.

That said, some will react to RIVERDALE's shift to superheroes the same way we reacted to SLIDERS becoming a clumsy TV approximation of DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS / DRAGONHEART / SPECIES / THE RUNNING MAN / ANACONDA.