I’m going to do a review of a few of the new shows I’ve checked out. This one is the first.
Having been a Buffy fan, it’s nice to see SMG back onscreen. It’s been too long. Unfortunately, I don’t know if this is going to be the right vehicle for her. The premise of the show is actually very good. The execution just feels off and the script, rushed.
If you don’t want to know more, don’t read further! Spoilers ahead!
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The basis of the show is that Bridgette and Siobhan are estranged twin sisters. Siobhan…wealth, nice houses, etc. Bridgette…stripper, witnessed a murder, price on her head. Bridgette gets cold feet at the last minute before testifying and runs…right to Siobhan, who welcomes her with open arms. Something in their past is alluded to, but not fully explained, but Siobhan forgives Bridgette…or does she? The sisters go out for a little spin on a boat together…why? Note: the special effects in this scene are so bad that it’s hard to watch. You can almost see guys offscreen rocking the boat back and forth and throwing buckets of water. Anyway, suddenly we’re seeing Bridgette wake up on the boat and Siobhan is gone.
Okay, now it gets good. Bridgette does the only thing a rational twin would do in this situation, right? Yep, she takes Siobhan’s place. No one even knows Bridgette was there. Almost immediately, Bridgette finds out her sister was living a pretty wild life herself. She was having an affair with her best friend’s husband AND hadn’t found out yet that she was pregnant (how will Bridgette fake that?). The mob boss that Bridgette was going to testify against is looking for her to end her threat against him, too. At the very end of the episode, a phone rings in Paris. Siobhan (yes) answers the phone and a voice tells her that “we have a problem.”
This pilot could easily have filled a two-hour time slot…and it should have. There are so many holes that NEEDED to have been filled in. You feel like whole scenes have been left out, and it’s my suspicion that they have, on the cutting room floor. Bridgette slips too easily into Siobhan’s life, only making small mistakes here and there, although her husband knows immediately that something is different. The really odd thing is, if this was a plan by Siobhan, how did she know that Bridgette would take her place and not just report her dead?
Anyway, I plan to keep watching. The show has a lot of potential and maybe they will flash back and fill in some of the gaps. Supposedly, they intend to throw in a twist in almost every episode. The pilot had 2.7 million viewers. With that small an audience, it won’t last long unless it gets really good really fast and people notice.