Bates Motel

So i saw an advance of the new show that is billing it's self as a prequel to the 1960 classic which is not only a crowning achievement but one of the greatest directors Alfred Hitchcock but could also be one of the greatest films ever made , that that is what we are weighing this against...not another teen thriller on the CW but a movie that changed the game and created the horror subgenre we now know as slasher films ...you what paved the way for the likes of Halloween, Texas chainsaw Massacre , Hostel ..etc. In and of it self the show is entertaining when it stays out of high-school, lets face even on their best days the whole highschool thing has been done to death and after Buffy is it even needed to go there, not like there is a lack of that sort of thing on tv in the first place.

The major strike against the show is it's modernized ,now im not sure how a prequel to something set in 1960 ends up in 2013...yes there are ipods and iphones... so a key plot device of the original film is rendered a mute point as Janet Leigh could have gotten on her iphone and looked up triple a or a less creepy hotel or used mapqwest to know a better highway was built. So its silly really, they missed an opportunity to have retro feel , made a horror version of madmen...oh yeah before you say well why copy madmen...well why copy a thousand high-school shows.

Another think is i understand nerd is the new hipster but a car full of girls fawning over a dorky Norman Bates who has a overbearing mother is a little much more me to suspend my disbelief on and he needs to be more fucked up over chicks thats why he grew up to get all his voyeuristic kicks out of the peep hole shower. This show has the momentum of a lot of unfounded hype over it, based off of what commercial? their are a ton of people liking it on Facebook when it was sight unseen so they are all going to feel pretty stupid once they actually watch it. Its not horrible, it for the most part want to be the parts I like least about Dexter the teenage flash backs. But it was still watchable despite this, part of this was there is a rape in the first episode, though a pretty tame on, and on A&E I have low expectations for the shower scenes to come.

The Norman Bates character does capture some of his mannerisms and his awkward communication disconnects though the dynamic with him and his mother needs some work, but im not totally sold on this kid or his mother who is almost too likable at this point, though she is passive aggressive enough for you to see where its going. The problem with prequels is we know whats going to happen, he cant get killed or caught, so the stakes aren't as high as Dexter as in some ways this is the vampire diaries version of Dexter. Sure there wouldn't be a Dexter with out Psycho but that's not stopping these writers.

I don't see this being able to hold its own as a series, the modernization is going to drag the show into lowest common denominator teen fodder, and the horror elements are going to remain on par with Vampire Diaries, though Im not sure the looming Hannibal Lecter series is going to be much better and have yet to check out Ripper Street, though I plan on it once i get caught up with everything else, consider this a lesson in be careful what you like before you see it as its not as offensive as what I expected but misses the mark of respecting the source material.