What do you think of the show Riverdale?

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Basically my friends love this show and can't get enough of it, so I tried watching the first couple of episodes, and had a really hard time getting into it, or seeing what all the hype is about.

What I don't get is, is that this show is suppose to be based off the Archie comics. But it tries to be dark and controversial, and it keeps falling flat on it's face, cause it's Archie. It wants to be Desperate Housewives, and has a similar vibe to it, with a mystery murder that took place, and one of the characters, narrating the story, in a similar fashion.

But I don't see how you can put something as lighthearted and silly as the Archie comics onto a Desperate Housewives like adaptation.

I mean that would be like redoing Breaking Bad, and at the last minute of writing, the producer's say "Hey, we need to put The Flinstones in this, dark gritty crime drama about a family man in the drug underworld.

It just doesn't work. I kept laughing with the show uninentionally throughout the first two episodes, and laughing at it, just to keep from crying. Now I am no prude. I love dark drama movies, and plenty of my favorites are those. In fact my friends tell me my taste is too dark and depressing sometimes in movies.

But at least those movies try to be taken seriously, where as this tries to bring the Archie comics into it!

Now this show does have a really good idea to start off with I think. A high school boy, is having an affair with one of his school teachers, and they both are witnesses two a murder, but do not want to tell, cause they don't want to get into trouble. That is a solid idea for a controversial drama right there. But not for Archie and Ms. Grundy!

Also, the show wants to be dark and controversial, but I feel it also doesn't have the guts to go all the way. For one thing, Ms. Grundy is not even that much older looking than Archie, and she looks 25-30, tops. If they want to go this route, they could at least have gotten an actress in her late 40s to early 50s for the role, and there plenty of hot actresses that age. But they don't even have the guts to go that far, and want to be controversial, yet play it so safe.

So the show has two significant flaws:

1. The controversial subject matter doesn't work cause it's Archie.

2. It's not willing to go all the way with it's controversial subject matter, and even if it did, it still doesn't work cause it's Archie.

So it doesn't work either way, cause the whole concept is a clash of contradictions from all sides.

Also, so far in the show they introduce characters which have nothing to do with this murder plot, and they feel random and forced, like Josey and the Pussycats, and Moose, who is now gay. But the homosexuality is not treated as naturally being part of the story, and feels like such a random forced subplot, again trying to be controversial in the Archie universe, just for the sake of being controversial, and it also causes a lot of unnecessary laughs.

But maybe it's just me? What do you think?



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We already have this thread about Riverdale.

I do reckon that Riverdale is all the better for being based off Archie Comics. It's got a great novelty hook thanks to the large gap between the sweet and wholesome source material and the dark and edgy adaptation, but it doesn't exist for novelty value alone. The whole concept of an American everytown with a dark underbelly is a pretty standard one, but to have it involve one of the longest-running "American everytown" properties in existence lends it some interesting texture. It effectively becomes a real Twin Peaks kind of show where there is a central murder mystery but it still takes the time to flesh out the characters who have varying involvement (or none at all) in the central mystery. I won't deny that I laughed a lot at those first couple of episodes because of how shockingly different to the comics it all was, but once you acclimatise to that then it does have a fairly solid plot underneath its "lol edgy" exterior. The characters aren't all that different from their characterisation in the comics - the show just offers the freedom for them to be deconstructed (e.g. Betty's "perfect girl next door" exterior hides how she's quietly breaking down from the pressure to be perfect) and even reconstructed. It's an opportunity for developing the characters in a way that the unchanging world of the comics would not be able to allow.

I will concede that the Archie/Grundy sub-plot doesn't really go anywhere and more or less wraps up after about four episodes, but I don't see how Grundy's age matters - it doesn't matter how young or old she is, she's still a teacher preying on a student and that's messed-up no matter what (and the show definitely treats it as such). Archie doesn't really get much to do for half the season as it's the other mains (Betty, Veronica, Jughead) who are more directly involved with trying to solve the murder. That being said, if you think the show "doesn't have the guts to go all the way", keep in mind you've only seen a couple of episodes. It definitely ramps up as the season progresses.
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We already have this thread about Riverdale.

I do reckon that Riverdale is all the better for being based off Archie Comics. It's got a great novelty hook thanks to the large gap between the sweet and wholesome source material and the dark and edgy adaptation, but it doesn't exist for novelty value alone. The whole concept of an American everytown with a dark underbelly is a pretty standard one, but to have it involve one of the longest-running "American everytown" properties in existence lends it some interesting texture. It effectively becomes a real Twin Peaks kind of show where there is a central murder mystery but it still takes the time to flesh out the characters who have varying involvement (or none at all) in the central mystery. I won't deny that I laughed a lot at those first couple of episodes because of how shockingly different to the comics it all was, but once you acclimatise to that then it does have a fairly solid plot underneath its "lol edgy" exterior. The characters aren't all that different from their characterisation in the comics - the show just offers the freedom for them to be deconstructed (e.g. Betty's "perfect girl next door" exterior hides how she's quietly breaking down from the pressure to be perfect) and even reconstructed. It's an opportunity for developing the characters in a way that the unchanging world of the comics would not be able to allow.

I will concede that the Archie/Grundy sub-plot doesn't really go anywhere and more or less wraps up after about four episodes, but I don't see how Grundy's age matters - it doesn't matter how young or old she is, she's still a teacher preying on a student and that's messed-up no matter what (and the show definitely treats it as such). Archie doesn't really get much to do for half the season as it's the other mains (Betty, Veronica, Jughead) who are more directly involved with trying to solve the murder. That being said, if you think the show "doesn't have the guts to go all the way", keep in mind you've only seen a couple of episodes. It definitely ramps up as the season progresses.
Oh okay. I just feel that the writers felt they had to make the age gap close because they felt too uncomfortable writing a larger age-gap. Even though she is still preying on him, it kind of feels like the writers want to play it safe, and I mean that in a bad way.

And the fact that it's forgotten about and doesn't go anywhere, also says that they were not comfortable giving it a more dramatic pay off, if they are just going to just introduce this serious idea, and then just forget about it, if that's what happens.

And I understand what you mean that the show has more freedom to de-construct and re-construct the characters by setting it in a serious tone, but does that really belong in the Archie comics universe?

I mean that's like taking the characters from the Peanuts comics, and putting them in dark, controversial, and criminal situations, and pushing them to their limits as characters. Would fans really want that?

Or that's like taking the Dilbert comics, and turning it into a serious techno-thriller, like the 24 series. It's just not true to the source material at all.



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The smaller age gap makes sense when considering how Archie doesn't seem to grasp the full extent of how wrong it all is, even though it's clear to the other characters that the difference is ultimately irrelevant. If you really want to know, the pay-off is that

WARNING: "Riverdale" spoilers below
other people find out about it and immediately work to break it up, which ultimately results in Grundy - who had actually stolen the identity of the real, much older-looking Grundy - leaving town and not coming back for the rest of the season.


I just put it down to first-season stumbling and how they need to find something for Archie to do while the main plot went ahead without him - between that and his attempts to become a musician, it comes across as treading water until he gets brought into the main plot.



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Okay thanks. I actually didn't look at the pay off spoiler. Truth be told, I am actually kind of enjoying this show and want to see more. It is interesting, and I want to see how it turns out, now that I am four episodes in.

However, I do unintentionally laugh a lot cause it's Archie. I have to keep putting that in the back of mind, and make like it's not, to try to enjoy, but I am curious to what's going to happen and will watch a few more for sure.



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One of the worst series I've ever glimpsed at. I watched the first episode and never went back again.
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I guess I'm just surprised, cause usually when movie or show comes out that is based off the comic, and they deviate far from the source material, the fans are disappointed sometimes, like with the Hulk movies for example.

But fans of this, with all the severe deviation from the source material, are eating up with "thank you sir, may I have another", which I find surprising.



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I think deviation's okay with most people if the adaptation ends up being good enough. The characters mostly remain the same, it's just that the show around them is darker and more mature than the comics. In any case, I don't think Archie comics have the kind of serious fandom that comics like Marvel and DC do so fans aren't as likely to get bent out of shape over the changes - the only one that bothered me was Chuck going from nice-guy cartoonist to predatory jock.



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For sure, I understand that the characters are mostly the same. It just seems to me that the plot and premise surrounding the characters is completely out of tone, with the universe. It's like the example I used of making a TV show of Dilbert, and then making it into a techn-thriller like 24, or taking the kid characters from the Peanuts comics, and turning it into City of God, or something. It's just really weird, and I ask why did they have to do with this with the Archie characters, rather than just make it an original series material?

Also, instead of Chuck being a predator, why not make Moose a predator? I mean he was always very extremely possessive in the comics, and I think his character is closer to how Chuck is in the show, compared to the original Chuck. So it seems me, that Chuck and Moose, should switch places as characters in the show.



I didn't know about season 5 until I saw the trailer. How many series will be in this season?