Riverdale

Riverdale is not only coherent but often enthralling, an effectively moody and sometimes perverse melodrama that manages to revel in the high school tropes that Archie helped define decades ago while simultaneously subverting them.

It’s a real high-wire act, blending teen soap, a murder mystery, biting humor and a beloved franchise. But Aguirre-Sacasa and uber-producer Greg Berlanti (who, with NBC’s Blindspot and The CW’s superhero lineup, seemingly has the magic touch these days) manage it all in surprisingly nimble fashion.

Full of fast-paced banter and pop culture lines, Riverdale starts this road trip as a fine ride.

While you watch--which you will, since this show is addictive--it’s as if Riverdale is growing up fast before our eyes, like a clever, winking teenager who’s already grown-up enough to know she should keep her deepest secrets to herself.

It’s certainly a bit jarring in the way it presents its new take on Riverdale, which includes having a character gawk that “Archie got hot!” (especially since that statement is true). But it also skillfully embraces both the absurdity of its premise and the inherent drama of the soap opera genre, and the result is just self-aware enough to be truly juicy.

Riverdale, an enjoyable and moody teen series for adults who love teen series, a group of which I consider myself a member, is a fascinating splash in the ongoing remake deluge.

CW’s engrossing and remarkably adept drama Riverdale, a twisted but often satisfying alternative spin on the Archieverse

As predictable, or artificial, as the show can seem, when you take stock of it--even in its dark themes and situations--it is vital and inviting, fundamentally true to its characters and hard to put down.

It’s at its most fun and addictive when it completely surrenders itself to these steamy interludes, shirking the idea of needing to be anything more than it is and completely at home in the updated debauchery of such a classic set of characters.

A darker, more complex reimagining of the Archie universe. Did I say dark? Let's add moody, murky and, at times, creepy. It also is surprisingly engaging, thanks in no small measure to the winning performances of KJ Apa as Archie Andrews, Camila Mendes as Veronica Lodge and Lili Reinhart as Betty Cooper.

This is not a time for nostalgic innocence. This is a time for staring right into the face of how dark and nasty the world can be. And TV has always been a medium where, given the opportunity, all possibilities are there. For many, Riverdale might be an acquired taste. But there’s plenty to chew on here.

Riverdale spins the basics of the subgenre into pop-art cotton candy--with all the stickiness, instant gratification, and substance that implies.

Thursday’s opener sets up multiple plot lines and conflicts, and while they don’t all pan out over the four episodes made available for preview, enough do to make Riverdale one of midseason’s more promising shows.

Well done, but formulaic.

The show is so possessed by cultural influences that it struggles for original identity, but that's the conflict and rebellion of every character. A pastiche that's earnest and subversive, Riverdale wants it all ways, and mostly succeeds. [27 Jan 2017, p.50]

Though Riverdale works a bit too hard to shake off the wholesomely corny elements of vintage Archie comics, the show is a savvy teen melodrama, with high school characters whose wised-up-beyond-their-years attitudes may remind us of the early days of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Glee" and the movie, "Mean Girls."

It will be easy for Riverdale to lapse into campiness. ... But for now, Riverdale is an intriguing experiment in comic artiness that just might work.

There’s a lot of appreciate about these early episodes of Riverdale, if not outright adore. There’s also tremendous space for improvement, which is true of most series tasked with servicing a large ensemble of characters.

Archie Comics meets "Twin Peaks" in Riverdale, a surprisingly good adaptation that takes the familiar exploits of the cartoon gang, sexes them up--including a central murder mystery--and brings them into the 21st century.

The early episodes get better the deeper they delve into the murder mystery, despite false notes like members of a biker gang who look like extras from “Grease.” If the tone is not yet consistent, the aesthetic is, a strong sign that Riverdale knows what it wants to be. The terrific art direction warps the bubble-gum iconography into something haunting and lurid.

Riverdale shows off a heightened visual look that sometimes calls to mind “Pushing Daisies” in its ambition. Whether it can maintain that high level of production design, we’ll see, but in its early episodes, Riverdale positions itself as one of the more ambitious teen dramas to come along in several years.

Riverdale, the CW’s new teen drama based on the Archie comics, is an eerie and offbeat take on the high school mythos--both addictive and confusing in equal parts.

Riverdale can be overwrought at times and even too transparently politically correct at others. But it’s also crisply entertaining and particularly well-cast with respect to the pivotal roles of Betty Cooper (Lili Reinhart) and Veronica Lodge (Camila Mendes).

A dark (can I say "dark" enough here?) teen soap more in the vein of "Pretty Little Liars" than a comic book come to life.

It boldly commits to its campy, overcast aesthetic--and it’s here I’ll note that I’m not naturally inclined toward teen melodrama, but can be drawn in if the execution’s great enough (like The O.C., or Everwood, whose creator Greg Berlanti is an executive producer here)--while struggling at times to turn its characters from archetypes into individuals.

This perversely compelling mystery melodrama has echoes of Twin Peaks and even 90210. [16-29 Jan 2017, p.17]

Once the novelty of Riverdale--seeing who is portraying each character and how each is written--wears off, Berlanti and crew hopes the mystery will keep you coming back. The trouble is the kids are so off-putting, you won’t care who committed the crime.

References are not enough to build a compelling narrative, and the show’s central mysteries become less intriguing over the course of the four episodes available for review.

It’s fun at times to make the comparisons with the original comic, to see just how far Riverdale strays. But that compare-and-contrast can take you only so far in the face of such derivative writing.

Everyone, it seems, has a secret in Riverdale, and in the first four episodes of the series, some of those secrets are too conveniently revealed as new ones are loaded into the script to keep the momentum going. There’s minimal credibility here, but that doesn’t torpedo the show.

The tone and pacing are all over the map, so it’s not always clear if Riverdale knows what kind of series it wants to be.

Riverdale is all-in on its gimmick, and I can admire that.

The fact that Riverdale is so campy, self-aware, and overwritten will be catnip to some, but it feels like a missed opportunity to tell a strong, high school-set story that is not about kids with adult problems trying to solve brutal murders.

The acting is overcooked, the writing homicide-inducingly arch; and making the narrative dirtier, I am sad to report, is not the same thing as making it more sophisticated.