'Riverdale': First Look

[Captain Comics]

GET A FIRST LOOK AT THE CW’S RIVERDALE TV SERIES

Live-action series based on Archie Comics characters premieres January 26th at 9pm ET/8pm Central

You’ve waited patiently for this moment – and now it’s here.

We’ve got a sneak peek at ‘Riverdale’, the new one-hour live-action drama based on the classic Archie Comics characters premiering January 26th, 2017 at 9/8c on The CW. What more could you want?

‘Riverdale’ is written by Archie Comics Chief Creative Officer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and produced by Warner Brothers Studios and Berlanti Productions and has been described as a subversive take on the classic Archie mythos. Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schecter, Jon Goldwater, and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa serve as executive producers.

The live-action series offers a bold, compelling take on Archie, Betty, Veronica, and their friends, exploring small-town life and the darkness and weirdness bubbling beneath Riverdale’s wholesome facade. The show will focus on the eternal love triangle of Archie Andrews, girl-next-door Betty Cooper, and rich socialite Veronica Lodge, and will include the entire cast of characters from the comic books—including Archie’s rival, Reggie Mantle, and his best friend, Jughead Jones.

‘Riverdale’ stars KJ Apa as Archie Andrews, Lili Reinhart as Betty Cooper, Camila Mendes as Veronica Lodge, Ashleigh Murray as Josie McCoy, Luke Perry as Fred Andrews, Cole Sprouse as Jughead Jones, Madelaine Petsch as Cheryl Blossom, Ross Butler as Reggie Mantle, Casey Cott as Kevin Keller, Mädchen Amick as Alice Cooper, and Marisol Nichols as Hermione Lodge.

The show’s premiere on January 26th will be followed one week later on February 1st, with a special tie-in one-shot comic book written by ‘Riverdale’ showrunner Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and members of the show’s writing staff with art by Alitha Martinez. The RIVERDALE ONE-SHOT promises to reveal new secrets and stories from the summer before the eternal love-triangle debuts on television screens.

An ongoing RIVERDALE comic book series will debut in comic book stores and digital platforms in March by Aguirre-Sacasa and Martinez that will run alongside the show, expanding on the events of the series and diving deeper into the characters and their relationships.

For more information about ‘Riverdale’ and everything Archie Comics, visit the official Archie Comics website and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

[Richard Willis]

Riverdale debuts tomorrow, Thursday, January 26.

[JD DeLuzio]

The design aesthetics are great, a strange blend of contemporary and stylized comix classic.

The rest of the show?

You know that CW dialogue, that blends exposition, witty retorts, pop culture references that often have nothing to do with the people uttering them, camp sexiness, forced cliches, and an utter lack of subtlety,  or even the vague awareness that subtlety exists? Let's just call it "CW dialogue." Someone evidently made a computer program to generate CW dialogue. Then they printed out the results, fed it to the writers who had guns put to their heads and were ordered to make it even more CW.

Forget Putin and Trump. I suspect Riverdale may be the real reason the Doomsday Clock was moved ahead today. I'm absolutely certain there's a prophecy on a dust scroll somewhere indicating that this show is one of the Signs of a Pending Apocalypse.

In conclusion, I suspect the CW has a certified hit.

[Mr. Silver Age]

I pretty much l-l-liked it, if only because it was way more sorta/kinda like the new Archie series and way less like Twin Peaks than I was anticipating. I will stipulate they need something more serious and mysterious as a story arc than Archie mistakenly asking both Betty and Veronica to the prom (which I guess sorta happened anyway), and killing the class rich jackass is a good way to go.

The characters are all pretty good, none are over the top. Veronica's situation is plausible, and they all look good. There's room to develop more complications for them.

I understand why the Grundy-Archie thing, they need a good reason why they can't come forward with what they heard, although now that the body's been found, that they heard a shot isn't a revelation. So their guilt over that is lessened. Bonus points to Grundy trying to snuff out whatever she was thinking at the time. I mean, geez, a sophomore? Even so, that it's simmering in the background makes me like them both way, way less, and that's not a good plot to have going.

It had enough Archie in it to make the use of the characters justified, but it needed more humor. The superhero shows, even Arrow, manage to inject humor without minimizing the danger. I hope they didn't try so hard to show us this is not My Archie (since I'm old enough to be most of the viewing audience's grandfather) that they deliberately cut out anything humorous. 

Other points:

* Jason went missing, they dragged the river, found nothing and declared him dead? Until that last scene, I was wondering if these guys had ever read a comic book before and knew the First Rule of Comic Books (No Body = Not Dead), until I remembered I guess they had.

* It's been a long time since I've been in high school, because back then, football tryouts started long before the first day of school, as games started then; cheerleading squads had teachers overseeing things and didn't just have the Head Bitch making every decision; and teachers had classrooms and the Teachers Lounge, not "office hours" like a professor. How things change!

* The River Vixens? Seriously?

* If Jughead is narrating what seems to be his "novel," how reliable is he?

-- MSA

[JD DeLuzio]

Things have, if anything, become more supervised. Tryouts start in summer. And office hours? Maybe in some schools. I haven't seen it. Things just works this way in Riverdale-Reality.

My (somewhat more measured) review may be found here

Dang kids should get off my lawn and read it, dadgummit.

 
Mr. Silver Age said:

* It's been a long time since I've been in high school, because back then, football tryouts started long before the first day of school, as games started then; cheerleading squads had teachers overseeing things and didn't just have the Head Bitch making every decision; and teachers had classrooms and the Teachers Lounge, not "office hours" like a professor. How things change!

* The River Vixens? Seriously?

* If Jughead is narrating what seems to be his "novel," how reliable is he?

-- MSA

[JohnD]

I actually tried not to watch this; but, the temptation was just too much. I don't know that I liked it so much as I was intrigued by it. Although, I can't put my finger on why. The characters were close enough to the source that I found myself asking "how do they get out of this one?" (except Betty. She's been reduced to a basket case, sadly). That being said, I agree it needed more humor. For that matter, what was supposed to pass as funny? Dilton leading a boy scout troop? Moose being in the closet?

I will say that if I didn't have details of the show in advance, I would have probably tuned out. I  guess the advance information prepared me for the changes (frankly, I expected a lot more). That being said, I don't know if I'll be back for more. This show may just hit my "if nothing else is on" list.

Mr. Silver Age said:

I pretty much l-l-liked it, if only because it was way more sorta/kinda like the new Archie series and way less like Twin Peaks than I was anticipating. I will stipulate they need something more serious and mysterious as a story arc than Archie mistakenly asking both Betty and Veronica to the prom (which I guess sorta happened anyway), and killing the class rich jackass is a good way to go.

The characters are all pretty good, none are over the top. Veronica's situation is plausible, and they all look good. There's room to develop more complications for them.

I understand why the Grundy-Archie thing, they need a good reason why they can't come forward with what they heard, although now that the body's been found, that they heard a shot isn't a revelation. So their guilt over that is lessened. Bonus points to Grundy trying to snuff out whatever she was thinking at the time. I mean, geez, a sophomore? Even so, that it's simmering in the background makes me like them both way, way less, and that's not a good plot to have going.

It had enough Archie in it to make the use of the characters justified, but it needed more humor. The superhero shows, even Arrow, manage to inject humor without minimizing the danger. I hope they didn't try so hard to show us this is not My Archie (since I'm old enough to be most of the viewing audience's grandfather) that they deliberately cut out anything humorous. 

-- MSA

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

Totally disjointed thoughts regarding the premiere:

I liked it to a certain extent, and will be watching more. I think this is the first of *any* iteration of the Archie gang in which Veronica is my favorite character. And Jughead might be my least favorite (although I'm willing to give him time). The world has turned upside-down.

There are still good reasons for Archie and Grundy to come forth with their story -- the timing of the shot would be important for investigators to know.

First Aunt May and now Miss Grundy. I am not prepared for all of comics Old Ladies to suddenly become hot. I shudder to think what'll happen if the DC shows ever introduce Granny Goodness.

Somehow, Luke Perry is the perfect Fred Andrews, a character I've loved ever since Mark Waid showed him being the source of Archie's musical interests.

I guess there's no reason why "Seven Minutes in Heaven" still *wouldn't* be a thing, but it seems so old-school (meaning *my* school) to me.

[JD DeLuzio]

Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod) said:

I guess there's no reason why "Seven Minutes in Heaven" still *wouldn't* be a thing, but it seems so old-school (meaning *my* school) to me.

I suppose it could be, but there's a discrepancy between things they do and say that suit the ago of the characters, and things they do and say that suit the age of the actors. Stylized worlds are tricky at the best of times, and this one just didn't work for me.

Yeah, needs more funny beyond "witty retorts."

But again, kudos on the design/look.

 

[Richard Willis]

We enjoyed the Riverdale premiere. The dialogue didn't seem that bad to me. So Archie is a Sophomore, which makes the other characters the same age? I guess the standard is for actors to be ten years older than the teens they are portraying. The Archie/Grundy thing wasn't as bad as I thought it would be in that neither of them seems to want to continue. I guess they will have Reggie actually do something in future episodes. I also hope Jughead gets to do more than narrate. There are some "suspension of disbelief" bits in the way the school is run, but we should be used to suspending our disbelief. I really like the way they have a nuanced character in Veronica. I think Betty's problems relate to whatever Jason did to her sister, who apparently is slated to appear soon.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Tracy and I watched the first ten minutes before mutually deciding it wasn't for us.

[ClarkKent_DC]

Richard Willis said:

We enjoyed the Riverdale premiere. The dialogue didn't seem that bad to me. So Archie is a Sophomore, which makes the other characters the same age? I guess the standard is for actors to be ten years older than the teens they are portraying.

It's easier to have a twentysomething actor play a teenager than it is to have an actual teenager play a teenager for a lot of reasons.

• The twentysomethings are no longer subject to limits on their working hours because of child labor laws.
• The twentysomethings are no longer required to be in school or tutored on set, further limiting their working hours.
• They aren't going to change physically all that much, because they've grown past that.
• They are presumably and may even actually be more mature, and thus better able to deliver good performances.

"Easier" isn't synonymous with "better." Some shows will deal with kid actors -- like, say, Modern Family -- and some won't.

[Mr. Silver Age]

Even there, Modern Family changed its Lily actor for a casting reason I forget now. Jenna Coleman (aka Clara) is 30 years old and she's playing the 18-year-old Queen Victoria on PBS right now. I wonder if they take that as a compliment? Probably so until they get typecast into playing teenagers into their 30s.

I will say about Riverdale that if someone didn't like the first 10 minutes (Tony Isabella and some others gave it 15 minutes and gave up), they probably wouldn't warm to it over the next 50. Although watching the first few minutes seems to be enough to only confirm that it would be like those pervasive teasers, and I think it pretty much was. Putting the B-V kiss into the teaser was stupid, but it was even more so in the show (only to have Cheryl tell them it was stupid, so the writers got to titillate and admit they were doing it!)

I'm not sure I'm going to continue to like what I liked about the first episode for long, as it seems that it will change as the mystery takes hold. I doubt most of us will grow to like it more than we did initially, given where it's going, but I'm hoping to be surprised. Berlanti hasn't really let me down so far.

OTOH, one of my FBFs (as opposed to my BFFs) posted that it ripped apart his childhood. I hope he was being overly dramatic if not completely joking (but I wasn't about to find out). I think only Rip Hunter could really do that.

-- MSA

[Captain Comics]

Not only did Cheryl call out the faux lesbianism as passé, but she also shot down Kevin with a " 'gay best friend' is cliche" crack. She may be mean, but she's not dumb!