MrX

"Pilot"

Ayre

Saw the pilot a few months ago. Its like a cross between Dawson's Creek and the OC. It's a little too quirky for its own good and the lead is creepy, but it looks like it will be fun to watch.

rfduncan

Speaking of creepy the ads for it aren't so hot, "From the creator of Dawson's Creek and Scream"? How are those two things remotely associate-able?

It has an 8 episode order, and I have nothing new airing on HD so I'm in.

critterdvd

I watched the pilot almost a year ago with my sister, and I can honestly say we really liked it. It was a little on the cheesy side of things, but then again this was a low-budget pilot; but the premise was interesting enough, that we still talked about it and was dying to know what happens next. Can't wait for episode 2!

riley_dude

I read somewhere they are just burning off episodes they made so I doubt we will be seeing it after these are done. So don't get too hooked.

Bluelitespecial

I will give it a try, new One tree hill is on as well so I will be tuning in.

aktick

The picture on the Yahoo! front page has me tuning in...

wendersfan

I wonder what the appeal of the show will be?

critterdvd

There not burning them off... The show was originally ordered with only 8 episodes... In all honestly if the show can pull off 3.5/4 million season two will probably happen... CW needs something for summers...

Patman

Well, Gail O'Grady is on the show, so I'll probably check it out tonight.

DRG

Although if CW was really serious about this show they would have launched it behind Top Model instead of Pussycat Doll reruns. If it does well enough I can see them ordering more as a mid-season replacement for whatever new fall show bombs the hardest.

Doughboy

Yikes! Oliver Trask from The O.C. as the lead? I'll probably DVR it since there's nothing else on right now.

rfduncan

What? It is on at 8pm before a new One Tree Hill. Their schedule was full. I do think they ought to have flipped the time slots. But OTH is TV14 while Palms is TVPG - maybe that has something to do with that.

critterdvd

its TV-PG???? Uhhh, then the pilot they are airing is definately an edited version of the pilot I saw last summer, lol. This is not a TV-PG show by any stretch of the imagination. I'm not saying it's graphic, but its very tonal and VERY dark, yet with a sense of humor.

DRG

I'm saying if they really wanted to give Hidden Palms a shot they should have launched this back in March with Top Model (CW's top show) as a lead-in, instead of giving that timeslot to encores of the Pussycat Dolls show. In fact, they had originally given it a spring spot but pulled it. This may work out for them, but generally an early summer launch is a kiss of death for scripted shows.

riley_dude

I think that is the guy who Played the infamous Oliver on The OC but with Blonde Hair.

Red Dog

Works for me.

Ayre

He also played Pacey on The Creek.

(yeah, actually he did)

Patman

The best I can say is that it looks good in HDTV. It was weird seeing Gail O'Grady and Sharon Lawrence share a scene together (since they hail all the way back in their "NYPD Blue" days).

Michael Cassidy (Cliff) looks like a cross between Gregory Smith and Ryan Philippe, and looks nothing like he did on "The O.C.".

aktick

I liked it. Quite OC-like, which is fine. Good summer show...though it was a little "darker" than I'd imagined it might be.

Tracer Bullet

My boyfriend walked in during the pool scene and told me to just turn some porn on because no one had their shirt off. Then the main character removed his.

Good show, good show.

Icon769

I didn't like when Zack from the OC kicked the dog. It made me like the show less.

Gizmo

It turned me on, strange.

riley_dude

The reviews are coming in and posted at aintitcool.com

And I'll never get why screenwriter Kevin Williamson got to have that big career. Wasn’t “Scream” a whole lot of nothing? Wasn’t “Scream 2” a whole lot more of the same? Didn’t “I Know What You Did Last Summer” suck? Wasn’t “Dawson’s Creek” a nonstop chunk of nonsense? Didn’t “Teaching Mrs. Tingle” supersuck? Didn’t “Wasteland” suck? Didn’t “Glory Days” suck? Didn’t “Cursed” suck?

Those who go into The CW's dim, pretentious “Hidden Palms” with the lowest of expectations - as I did - may still find themselves thoroughly underwhelmed. The key problem is 42-year-old millionaire Williamson is a not-funny guy who continues to believe he knows how to write funny teens.

But what matters Herc’s opinion?

USA Today gives it a star and a half (out of four) and says:

… listening to some 16-year-old kid lecture his parents on the demands of 12-step rehabilitation is enough to make anyone reach for the mute button. …

TV Guide says:

… Overwritten and underacted (by the kids anyway), it strings out its weekly climactic shockers — some of them truly unnerving — with artery-hardening blobs of moldy adolescent whining. …

Entertainment Weekly gives it a “C-plus” and says:

… an un-eerie, under-soapy misfire … Here, the characters yak a lot but say nothing, which is either Williamson's commentary on the over-wired, self-involved e-generation, or...mediocre dialogue. …

Variety says:

… breaks zero new ground, recycling the formula that powered past high-school soaps. It's all in the execution, ultimately, and even with an accomplished cast, four episodes in, it's at best a dry heat. … The heat, after all, can drive people to do crazy things -- like watching a warmed-over teen soap.

The Hollywood Reporter says:

… mostly silly, pretentious, soap opera-style TV with an escapist mentality and the subtlety of an avalanche. …

The New York Times says:

… Remove the sex, sociopathology and possible filicide, and you will still be left with a quite inspiring home design show. … The clichéd aesthetic choice of so many single art directors, midcentury Modern isn’t necessarily the easiest signifier of typical American family life, and that is precisely the point. …

The Los Angeles Times says:

… While much of it is silly, corny or clichéd and relies more on easy effects — the power ballad, the overwrought sex scene — than on the subtle explorations of people and place that the pilot seems to promise, the series is, on the whole, highly digestible summer fun. …

DeadLamb

yeah they know it too.. First ep has the show's main hot girl Amber Heard running in the sprinklers, then in a pool, then later in another pool etc etc.. Preview for next ep I see it's *gasp* another talk, in a pool. lol

Story and character wise it really cliche on every level. The brainy cute girl next door, the so called nice guy who clearly has a dark "secret", hot strange girl, brainy guy with issues in his past..

that being said, I LIKE my summer tv shows to be all sort of trashy and cheesy junk.. Like Northshore or was a few years ago.. So I'll keep tuning in..