666 Park Avenue: An Address You Can Skip

The television industry, much like movies and music and every other entertainment industry, is cyclical. Trends rise and fall and then rise again ten or fifteen years later. Every now and then, a show comes along that bucks the trends... before inevitably getting subsumed into them. Lost was such a show. It was definitely outside the paradigm (pronounced pa-ra-dig-um, folks). It was unique in its time; so what happened? Lost clones popped up everywhere. Shows like Threshold, Invasion, and Surface that presented mystery after mystery with only a few vague clues and even fewer answers popped up everywhere for years. Most of them failed miserably as the trend that Lost inspired faded, and a new trend arose: shows that had mysteries like Lost did but that gave us answers in a timely fashion; shows like FlashForward and Happytown both solved their main mystery by the end of the first season, even though they got canceled on cliffhangers after that. Once Upon a Time did the same thing, but it thrives. Now, shows with mysteries are providing us with answers even faster: this season alone has seen the pilot of Revolution reveal some pretty big answers right away, and even though it hasn't dropped yet, the producers of Arrow have said they give away more in the first episode than anyone would expect. That, then, brings me to Sunday night's first episode of 666 Park Avenue.

I wanted to give this a shot because, well, the name obviously employs something sinister and evil going on, and it stars Terry O'Quinn, who is usually pretty damn awesome. So, how did it go? Right in the very first scene of the first episode, we're pretty much shown that O'Quinn's character, Gavin Doran, is probably Satan.

So now that I know that almost for sure, why should I keep watching? I know. Maybe it'll be engaging and well-acted. After all, one of Lost's main points was that the answers don't matter, the journey to those answers is what counts (something I explain in detail in my blog about the show's finale... cheap plug!)

The problem with that logic is, at least in this first episode, Gavin Doran is the most bland, boring, monotone Satan I've ever seen in my life. I prefer my Satans in media to be more engaging, suave, and gleeful in their evil, like Pacino in The Devil's Advocate, or even the Lucifer in season five of Supernatural. This guy was just boring, like he was just in a zen-like state of being completely disengaged from everything around him... and the rest of the cast seemed like they were taking their cue from him, because absolutely no one was showing any real sparks of talent... or even life. Which doesn't really surprise me, because other than O'Quinn and Vanessa Williams, who has never been the shining pinnacle of talent, I've never heard of anyone in the show.

Well, except for Rachael Taylor, who was the chick with the Australian accent in Transformers. You know, because being in that movie means you're talented enough to headline a cast, right?

I feel your pain, Prime.

Long story short? This is the first of the three new shows I was curious about this season that I'm dropping, and the first show I hope gets canceled. And I won't be surprised if it does, so you probably shouldn't put this address on your trick'or'treat route...

Wow. I didn't stick that landing at all, did I?