Review of US Season 1

tsasa198

"Hex," more than any other show I can remember, plays for keeps. If henceforth all TV shows were this brave then TV would easily pass film as the most important artistic medium today. The problem is that TV depends too much on maintaining the status quo. Of course this problem has gotten better in recent years (and I'll happily give the credit to HBO), but still producers are too afraid to alienate their audience. Thus if you look back at any given show you will notice that very little changes from one season premiere to the next. The Desperate Housewives still live close by and Vince Chase still has his Entourage. My point being that "Hex" is not afraid of change. New characters replace old ones and nothing ever stays the same. If this season were a film instead of a TV show you would be hard pressed to find the lines between the episodes. We have also been trained to never believe a characters death (I'm looking at you "Alias"), and because of that this show had the ability to legitimately rattle me, in a good way.

The story is quite Harry Potter-ish. A student at a boarding school gains supernatural powers and is thrust into a battle between good and evil. The main difference being that our hero here, Cassie, is not all good and much better looking. Strong characters are established from the get go. Besides Cassie we also have Thelma, her lesbian ghost roommate. Jemima Rooper who plays Thelma is the star as she represents the moral center of the show. She is good-hearted, but defiant, sex crazed but unable to do anything about it. If I were to have a complaint about the show it would be the shorthand they use to distinguish between good and evil. The theory of the shows seems to be that only evildoers enjoy bodily pleasures such as sex and smoking. This line of thought is very Puritanical and I found it annoying. By the time the monsters showed up on campus I really wasn't very excited to see them. I wanted more of the relationship between Cassie and Thelma. I know the otherworldly stuff is why people tune in to a show called "Hex," but in this case they didn't need it.

If I were to find one theme from this season it would be that it sucks to be a girl in modern society because you are exploited for your body. We ca probably all agree that this world we live in is filled with evil. But being a guy I really have no concept of what it is like to have everybody I meet only be interested in having sex with me and my child bearing ability. These two things are the only things Azazeal wanted from Cassie. And because Cassie gave in to him she had to pay the price. This show is no masterpiece but it is darn good. The comparisons to "Buffy" are obvious, but this show is twice as good as that one. "Buffy" was a slave to the episodic nature of TV, whereas "Hex" sheds that skin and creates an experience that is nearly cinematic.

score 8/10

tsasa198 8 October 2006

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1492357/