666 PARK AVENUE |
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Gavin Doran - Terry O'Quinn Olivia Doran - Vanessa Williams Henry Martin - Dave Annable Jane Van Veen - Rachael Taylor Brian Leonard - Robert Buckley Alexis Blume - Helena Mattson Nona Clark - Samantha Logan Louise Leonard - Mercedes Masöhn 
OTHER STRANGE ADDRESSES Haven Eastwick A Town Called Eureka Kingdom Hospital Marchlands Twin Peaks Point Pleasant
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PilotHenry and Jane take on the job of general managers at the Drake apartment building to supplement their incomes. The owners, Gavin and Olivia, are pushy millionaires and the place is full of odd residents. There may be, however, something even darker happening at the Drake. What we have here is a mash up of a number of horror tropes and influences including ROSEMARY'S BABY, DEVIL'S ADVOCATE, THE SHINING and others. The clean-cut couple coming into the sphere of the demonic older pair, the potential temptations and loss of innocence, the devil's bargains, the slow uncovering of the history ... there is very little here that is new and it isn't given a new set of clothes either. Rachael Taylor and Dave Annable are pleasant enough as the good kids, but they are also forgettable enough in the roles. Terry O'Quinn and Vanessa Williams get the evil couple roles and have fun playing them, though not exactly stretching themselves either. The familiarity of the plotting doesn't help either. There's a man trapped into killing to keep his dead wife alive, a ghost in the basement, a voyeur and his sexy target, the creepy girl who can see your future and ... you can wake me up any time soon It's not a total dead loss, though. There's a creepy moment with a ghost half-glimpsed in the basement and a sudden event with a lift. The killer's comeuppance is old hat, though. This is the pilot and so there is a lot of backstory to get through. Hopefully, the show will get better. Top MurmurationsJane is attacked by birds living in the walls of the Drake and discovers and old murder. Henry learns information that is vital to Gavin, but is bound by confidentiality. The birds in the wall storyline is just bizarre. That many birds inside the building couldn't possibly have gone unnoticed all this time. Still, it's better than the lovelorn woman and old murder story which is neither suprising nor shocking, though the twist is clearly meant to do both. Jane's dreams of the door in the basement is the only ongoing thread of any interest and does provide the cliffhanger ending. Top The Dead Won't Stay DeadJane learns some secrets about the Morans' daughter's death a decade previously and meets a ghost. Henry finds his career taking off under Gavin's tutelage. A writer of obituaries finds her fiction coming to life. There's a ghost at the Drake and it's a little girl ghost (oh, the originality of it). As is normal in these instances, she never stays around long enough to give a straight answer. Olivia Doran is becoming the most interesting character. It isn't certain how much she knows about her husband's demonic capabilities. The others are too simply drawn to be really effective. Henry is there to be tempted, Jane to be drawn into the ghost stories and Gaving is, of course, the Devil. There are a couple of neat moments, but on the whole the ongoing stories are dull. The introduction of the obit writer whose fiction comes to pass has a nice twist to it. Top Hero ComplexHenry is caught between Gavin and a corrupt official. Jane is told by the ghost not to open a mysterious suitcase. An ex-Russian spy is out to kill a Drake tenant. A couple of two part stories are woven together here to come to an end together. Henry's tussle with his conscience over his job and his honour collide with the ongoing tale of the obituary writer at the mercy of her own creations. The second story is much better and comes to an unfortunate end, taking one of the most fun characters with it. Nona steps into the fray as the prescient abandoned girl, but the ongoing arcs aren't really exciting. Top A Crowd Of DemonsThe little girl's ghost is out of his suitcase and turns out to be a murderer. Someone else is going after Gavin in a more corporeal fashion. There's more than a little of Stephen King's THE SHINING about this episode what with the costume party, the hotel-like apartment building, little girl ghosts and the father who killed his own family. Perhaps that why it works better than most of the other episodes to date. The more soap operatic storylines are still tedious, but wrapped up in the general danger of the blackout, the mixing of the supernatural attack on Jane and the more earthly attack on Gavin they are less annoying than is usual. It is ironic that an episode about ghosts is the first sign of life in the show. Top DiabolicThe man who stole the red box from Gavin makes his presence known and his intention; to bring down Gavin. Henry, meanwhile, is told that his political ambitions will suffer because of Jane, whose story to the police cannot be corroborated. This episode sets up a lot of potential storylines, but doesn't have one of its own to tell. The new challenger to Gavin at least gives him someone a little harder to deal with, which comes as a relief and ups the tension a little. Unfortunately, the increasingly tedious subplot about the writer and his menage a trois seems completely irrelevant and pointless. Top Downward SpiralNona's previously unresponsive grandmother starts to walk and has opinions about Jane's desire to leave the Drake. Henry is also worried about Jane's mental state. OK, the cliffhanger here in the last few seconds is awesome and takes the show forward greatly, something that it needs because the rest is starting to flag badly. Gavin's duel with his nemesis remains interesting, but isn't going anywhere with any great speed. The view into Nona's origin story makes for an interesting opening that is almost as good as the ending, but the reliance on the lifts is starting to get a bit old. It's also hard to tell how Henry and Jane ever got together as they haven't shared their lives with each other much lately, running along different tracks in practically different shows. Top Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?After 36 hours missing, Jane reappears in Times Square with no memory of her past. When Henry fails to believe that she's not crazy, she turns to detective for help in escaping the asylum. With this episode, 666 PARK AVENUE burst into life. OK, we didn't immediately get to find out what was at the bottom of the spiral staircase and the amnesia that Jane suffers is just too televisually convenient. A show where nobody ever had amnesia would be great. This, though, gets Jane out of the Drake and into a very threatening, old-school asylum situation. The force-feeding of drugs and visits to the violent wing are all old cliches, but they still manage to raise a frisson that the show has been sadly lacking to this point. The story of the Gavin's nemesis takes a change in direction when it seems that his daughter might still be alive and that is the storyline that brings us to the big end of episode reveal. It's a good one. Top HypnosJane undergoes hypnotic regression to find out what she saw down the spiral staircase. What she finds is 1927, and exactly what brought darkness to the Drake. The plot developments are getting better as the answers start to come. Jane's connection to the Drake and what it was that turned the Drake demonic are told in a fascinating flashback structure that also introduces us to Whoopi Goldberg's character Maris, who in less than an episode is more interesting than the rest of the characters in the show combined. The substory of the writer and his love life also gets a bit more interesting, though it still appears to have nothing to do with the main plot. Top The Comfort Of DeathHenry's political career looks set to take off. Jane's investigations take her to the home of a memeber of the original Order Of The Dragon. Things are moving along at a fair clip now, which helps to cover over the flaws and faults of the show and keep interest higher than previously. The slow erosion of Henry's values is still predictable and Jane's lack of interest in that remains a mystery. She, on the other hand, finds more clues to the backstory of the Drake and a surprising turn of events. The freeing of the spirit feels far too easy, but does introduce a new element to the tale. Top Sins Of The FathersA priest who sees evil everywhere is hired by an unusual source to kill Gavin. Meanwhile, a rejuvenated killer checks into the Drake. The story here is one of daughters and fathers and that is the aspect that is interesting, right down to the decision taken at the end which finally reveals how much Olivia knows about her husband's dealings. Henry's political aspirations continue to be dull and the playwright's love triangle is downright tedious. Top The Elysian FieldsJane learns of the Conspiratii, the group trying to destroy the evil of the Drake and her father comes back into her life. A whole group is introduced only to fall out of the story before the end credits. It is to be hoped that Jane's father does not go the same way. Just when the plot looks like it might be building up to something, the red box ends it all and everything is reset. At least the whole playwright love triangle finally moves forward. Top LazarusHenry starts his political career in earnest by refusing to badmouth his disgraced predecessor against Gavin's advice. Jane learns the truth about her previous connection with the Drake. There is a killing to be hidden and a deal to be made. This is the last ever episode of 666 PARK AVENUE and it's hard to tell what it supposed to be like as there is a clumsy, rushed attempt to tie up storylines in a satisfactory fashion whilst still giving hints about where the show would have gone. The story of the writer, his wife and his lover comes to an abrupt end that is a better mid-season cliffhanger than an end of season conclusion. We've plodded through their tale week after week and now that it just started to get good, it's concluded. It also doesn't make a lot of sense when you consider Gavin's penchant for making deals. Better is the storyline that brings Jane's father back into her life and sets up what must have been the intended cliffhanger, but which is then given a hurried through info dump of everything that Jane wanted to know, including the rather unsurprising family connections. The tacked-on 'one year later' postscript shows that interesting things were ahead for the show, but these days TV shows don't get the time to become good. They have to start out that way. The one critical flaw in 666 PARK AVENUE was that it was not scary. Not even remotely. Ever. That's a pretty fatal flaw in a horror show, especially in these days of increasing blood and gore where a simple ghost story won't cut it. Top |
