A while ago I said that I was really curious about the upcoming show, Eastwick, on ABC. It’s based on the movie The Witches of Eastwick, and the novel by John Updike. As a fan of both the movie and the book I was hopeful that the show would be just as good. As I previously wrote, the preview trailer that ABC has up on the official website (and which I have embedded below) wasn’t super encouraging. In fact, it looked pretty bad. The tone seemed all wrong, almost goofy, and I had real problems with Paul Gross as Darryl Van Horne (the role originally played by Jack Nicholson).
Well, I’ve had a chance to see the screener of the pilot episode (even if it was just a rough cut), and I have to say I’m encouraged … slightly.
For the most part, I can praise the cast of the show. Lindsay Price, Rebecca Romijn, and Jamie Ray Newman are great as the three witches. In this respect, the show played it really smart. These characters are all different enough than the movie and book versions (including different names) that I wasn’t constantly comparing them to Cher, Michele Pfeiffer, and Susan Sarandon.
The show did not use the same intelligence with the Darryl Van Horne role. After watching the entire rough cut pilot (note that this was not meant to be outright reviewed, as it’s supposedly not a finished product,) I was still a little leary of Paul Gross. In my opinion, he was trying to play the role too close to how Nicholson did it in the movie, and that is a dangerous idea indeed. It’s only one episode, so it’s hard to really judge how he will do, but I would prefer that he put his own spin on the character. You really can’t compete with Jack.
The rest of the cast fills out the show nicely, with Matt Dallas from Kyle XY, Sara Rue from Less Than Perfect, and Veronica Cartwright making a welcome return to Eastwick after costarring in the movie.
It’s hard to tell where they are going to take the show. The movie was significantly different than the very dark book, and this show seems to be significantly different than the movie and the book. My fear is that it will be a lot lighter than it should. Having said that, the actual pilot wasn’t quite as goofy as the preview clip, but it was pretty light. I will be very interested to see how the show develops and whether they move toward the lighter side or the more dramatic side.
Overall, the pilot felt a little rushed. I was hoping for a little more development, but with establishing characters and plots there was a whole lot going on in a scant 45 minutes. Each witch had a sub-plot going on and it was too much. Hopefully future episodes will be more focused.
In any case, I’m still curious about where the show will be going, and I’ll give it a little time to develop.
Clacked by Bob Degon
on Jun 29, 2009 @ 11:00 EST5EDT
