666 Park Avenue- Pilot

By Vanessa_Williams.jpg: motfemme derivative work: Tabercil (Vanessa_Williams.jpg) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

What happened: Jane and Henry, an unmarried couple, move into The Drake on 999 Park Avenue (not a typo) as the building's new managers. The owners offer them fancy clothes, friendship, invites to swanky parties, and a great apartment, as well as payment for the job. We meet some of the residents and bad things happen to them. Sadly, the male owner seems to be the literal Devil trying to lure them into his bosom forever so that he can make them a crappy deal that will end up ruining their lives. What do you expect? He's the Devil. The Drake is totally haunted too. Jane is starting to notice it's weird and that it has a dark history.

What we thought: We love that the episode started with a strings section. Classical music and horror go together well. We're watching this show for the cast, namely Terry and Vanessa, who were so good in their last shows. Also, people were saying that this show reminded them of The Devil's Advocate, and we liked that movie. Turns out, this is a LOT like The Devil's Advocate. Maybe too much. We've already seen that. Of course, we wanted more, so we're still pumped for the rest of this show.

It's good that horror is making a comeback on TV, but since this is a network station, it's never going to be able to do what American Horror Story does. Maybe that's a good thing. Then it won't be as much about the "shock of the week" and more about storytelling. We need a crossover where Glee's Kurt and Rachel end up here. Tee hee.

The main couple reminds us of Keanu and Charlize. The girl even has the blonde hair and sweetness. Henry is a lawyer and Jane is interested in architecture. Snore. We're sure their conversations are fascinating. We don't like the actress playing Jane. She's the weak spot in the cast. The opening sequence was creepy, but the guy getting sucked through the hotel door was anti-climactic and not that frightening. The bloody hand was way better. Never let the devil bring your wife back. Has this guy not seen or read Pet Sematary?

The playwrite is adorable. We think his wife is more attractive than that blonde he's been peaking at. That blonde needs some curtains. That red dress is fabulous. We want it immediately. No woman could look bad in that. It's worth $4,000. If someone offered to buy us that, we would just start jumping up and down and screaming. (Satan, take note.) That elevator incident is quite the lawsuit.

That was a pretty good pilot, but we aren't sold yet. While we were entertained, we're worried about the show's tone. Does it want to be light horror? Vanessa isn't terrifying so much as fun. Terry can be creepy, but only given the right material. Does the show want to be really depressing, disturbing, scary, or meaningful like The Devil's Advocate? We don't know what kind of horror show we are watching yet, but we're interested in seeing where it goes. We'll come back to The Drake next week.

Episode grade: B