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Believe Episode 2: My Review

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  • Believe Episode 2: My Review
• Believe Episode 2: My Review

• Believe Episode 2: My Review

  Michael > March 18th, 2014, 11:54 PM

  I watched "Beginner's Luck", which everyone else will identify as "Believe 1.02" I guess. It's still in rough shape, which is to be expected of a new TV show. Steve Sears ("Swamp Thing", "Xena") once said a show really doesn't hit its stride until the second season, so I'm willing to cut them a lot of slack with the early episodes. I am keeping my expectations low.
  
  The good stuff so far: Bo is consistent in her winning charm and naivete. I think the naivete is meant to show that she hasn't lived a normal life, although there were a couple of points where I just felt it wasn't belevable.
  
  Tate is proving to be as resourceful as he needs to be in avoiding capture. He also has a bit of luck and I don't mind a little serendipitous luck in every episode. After all, this is fantasy and we want the good guys to win, right?
  
  The bad stuff so far: Everyone is stupid. I don't know how else to put it. We have stupid F.B.I. and stupid mercenaries and stupid good guys. Somehow in spite of all their stupidity the plot moves forward. This is what I call "forced writing" and I fear it will doom the show to failure if they haven't already recognized the problem and fixed it.
  
  Characters are doing implausibly stupid things and getting away with them. By that I mean there are no consequences for the implausibly stupid things. Everyone just moves on to the next scene.
  
  WARNING: SOME SPOILAGE BELOW
  
  Things we're seeing too much of: This is the second week in a row where we see Tate come into possession of a lot of money only to lose it very quickly. Okay, we get the point. He's going to be on a tight budget for the foreseeable future. It's time for Tate to wise up to that fact and plan accordingly.
  
  Admittedly some people would need more time to accept that the Great Scriptwriter of Life has determined that their luck will always be "just enough". By that, I mean that Tate hasn't quite come to grips with the reality of the situation he is in. If by episode 10 he is still thinking and acting this way the show will have failed to produce any growth in the character.
  
  We had another mercenary show up this week. Oboy. I was not impressed. To be honest, the writing for these villains-of-the-week is exactly what I don't want to see: wimpy guys who need to be moved from one scene to the next by the writer. A good villain DRIVES THE STORY. That's all I'm going to say for now.
  
  Everyone magically appears at the right place at the right time. The police SHOULD be everywhere given the circumstances. They are the only ones who are where they are supposed to be. But we have inexplicable unseen resources at work that ensure that everyone else gets to where the next scene should be without any effort.
  
  There is too much F.B.I. incompetence. This is a favorite tactic of television show writers. Yes, in real life the F.B.I. can go decades without catching people but the reality is that only happens when the trail goes cold and the agents aren't breathing down the bad guy's neck. Once the Bureau gets close it doesn't like to lose the scent, and yet they were about the only people in the show who WEREN'T in the right place at the right time.
  
  It's going to be hard to believe in "Believe" if we don't see believable characters and situations. Somehow the writers are going to have to make the chase grow cold from time to time. And they will have to bring in recurring villains for mini-arcs, probably 3-episode arcs, so that the audience doesn't feel like it is being pandered to.
  
  With only two episodes to judge by so far we cannot say the show is formulaic but the writing is so formulaic I am surprised they went to production with this stuff. It needs to improve and improve quickly, in my opinion.
  
  Maybe audiences want cheap formulaic writing. I hope not.

• Believe Episode 2: My Review

  FilmGuy > April 30th, 2014, 12:32 PM

  According to TV By the Numbers the audience for "Believe" is growing week-by-week. Its performance in the 18-to-49-year-old range is improving.
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