Bates Motel

http://www.deadline.com/2012/01/ae-develops-psycho-prequel-series-tca/

.... . . . .

Mother fucker.

they tried that before!

almost 25 years ago and it failed as a spinoff series so they turned it into a failed one time TV movie:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bates_Motel

j7wild wrote:

they tried that before!

almost 25 years ago and it failed l

Well, to quote Peg Bundy: "Your Dad wants to take one more shot at it. And if I stopped your father every time he failed, we never would've had you or Bud!"

So, I say let them make a Bates Motel television series. Maybe they'll get it right this time.

Noy saying it'll be any good, but it's probably no worse an idea than Van Sant's shot-for-shot remake.

So far, not impressed. Modern setting, cellphones. Norma and Norman seem to normal. Maybe they slowly go insane? But so far it's just not working for me.

Surprised you bothered, I totally forgot about this show. Maybe for the better, I'll stick with the first two flicks.

I saw it while flipping through my Time Warner Cable online guide and I passed on.

There are so many shows nowadays that come and then go the same season.

You start watching them only to see them disappear either at the end of the season or even after a few episodes mid season.

It seems to me the only thing that lasts on TV now are dumb reality shows.

I'd give the pilot a "C". It should have been 90 minutes, and had a slower build up. Shit, within the first five minutes Norman's father dies, six months go by, and Norma and Norman move from Arizona to Oregon, and she has already bought the motel for utterly no logical reason that I was able to discern.

Within five minutes. The first twenty minutes should have been mother and son on the road after the father died, and they eventually find their way to the small town in Oregon and to the deserted old motel. Maybe they're escaping their past. Maybe something has happened to cause Norma to have the money to buy the property. Maybe something involving a bundle of cash. And Norma buys the hotel and house as a place to hide away from the world, with her son, and they both slowly start to go insane.

But in this show? We have the first five minutes where everything is moving at 90 mph, and then 20 minutes of teens with cellphones. It felt like a CW show. Things turn slightly more interesting when the old owner of the property tries to rape Norma and she kills him. Or maybe it was Norman who killed him. I'm tired, and I forgot. But they have to dispose of the body while evading nosey policeman, and while it's a nice idea, the show skims over the surface of everything so that it doesn't mean much in the end.

I'm not sure whether this or the Lector show is going to be worse.

If it's a prequel as opposed to a reboot, why the modern-day setting?

Blunt Instrument wrote:

If it's a prequel as opposed to a reboot, why the modern-day setting?

They can't afford to make the sets and hire the old picture cars to make it look authentic.

j7wild wrote:

Blunt Instrument wrote:

If it's a prequel as opposed to a reboot, why the modern-day setting?

They can't afford to make the sets and hire the old picture cars to make it look authentic.

The sets around the Bates Motel are certainly appropriate, but it would be cost prohibitive to build a small town of the 50's. Even MAD MEN takes place mostly indoors.

I honestly don't mind the modern setting. I think avoiding the pretense of being a prequel to the Hitchcock film is right way to go. The story of Norman and his mother is one that has a lot of potential, and I think that story should be the focus, as opposed to continuity.

So I looked at the show on it's own merits, and wasn't overly impressed. I do think the show has some potential, though. It seems to have some okay ideas, but I'm not sure how good the execution will be. It's basically an origin story for Norman Bates. It depends on whether they understand the character. I picture a Polanski apartment movie as a TV show, but this felt at times more like Gossip Girl.

I'll probably wait to rent it on DVD and see how far I get with it that way. I'm not gonna tune in every week.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

If it's a prequel as opposed to a reboot, why the modern-day setting?

Well, I guess the research and cost that goes into making a period-piece would be cost prohibitive.

I'm not sure that it's meant to be a literal prequel, but I don't know if it's a reboot either. I will say this: I find the juxtaposition of the old house and the old motel with Norma and Norman using cell phones very odd. The thing is, the motel wasn't old when Norman was running it in 1960. It was probably somewhat new. So I'm not sure why the motel needs to be old now; why can't it have been constructed fairly recently?

The show also implied that there were secrets in the motel, which really only works if you have seen the movies, have a working knowledge of the film series, and accept that the secrets started with the Bates and went forward. Otherwise, the series is telling us that there were ungodly secrets to the motel even before Norman killed his first victim. In which case the focus really becomes less about the Bates, and more about the motel, which in essence weakens the Bates' as characters. Otherwise, they just come across as some sort of hapless victim of the motel; sort of innocent bystanders who end up being influenced by some dark, unseen mood or spirit or karma in the house/motel.

The show was all over the place. Couldn't really tell where it's going or what it's trying to say. I'll give it more time. But there was distinct tween overtones to the pilot, as if it was being written for the teenage crowd.

Of disturbing note: this show got a TV-14 rating and shows a women having her panties ripped and violently raped, then the woman stabs the rapist over and over and over and splatters blood all over herself. How did this not get a TV-M rating?

From what I've heard, this wasn't all that bad. I'll check it out.

It's started showing on the Universal Channel in the UK, 2 eps in so far. Quite enjoyable once you adjust to the slightly odd setting 'mixture' of Fifties and modern day.

Caught the first couple of episodes. Tedious stuff.