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- Review -- Valentine: Pilot
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- Review -- Valentine: Pilot
Review -- Valentine: Pilot
- By Martha White
- Published 10/6/2008
- Television
- Unrated
Martha White
I love television, am an insomniac, and own three dual toner TiVos. TiVo saved my marriage. In a choice between keeping my television shows and dumping my ESPN obsessed husband, I would have gone with TV shows. TiVo lets me have my cake and eat it while watching a ridiculous amount of television.
View all articles by Martha WhiteValentine features a cast of mostly Greek mythological characters who must unite star crossed soulmates or they’ll lose their god-like powers, become mortal and eventually die.
The show sets up a simple convention:
Soulmates are introduced. Soulmates are torn apart. The Fates intervene by floating in a business card for the Valentine Corporation which takes the guise of whatever one of the soulmates may need (a plumber, the phone guy, a locksmith … whatever). The Valentine team of Grace/Aphrodite, her henchman Leo/Herakles, her son Danny/Eros, and Phoebe the Pythia aka Priestess of the Oracle at Delphi intervene to bring the soulmates together once Phoebe vets the match with the Oracle and learns their history and how much time they have before the couple is torn apart forever.
The pilot centers on Roland and Joanna who miss their opportunity at happiness when Roland enters the dreaded “friend zone” and supports Joanna through a bevy of crappy boyfriends which eventually culminate in Tad, a cheating douchebag she wants to marry.
The mythological crew has its own internal conflicts:
Grade/Aphrodite is unappreciated by her husband, Ari (likely Ares, the God of War) which sends her into the arms of her ex husband, Ray (still trying to figure out who he is in the mythological scheme).
Danny/Eros thinks love = getting it on, thus he tries to shortcut the matchmaker gig and muddles the situation.
The entire crew is living in the past, requiring the aid of Kate Providence, modern day romance novelist (cue hilarious Fabio scene excerpt of her book). Kate’s character will eventually prove a love match for Danny/Eros.
The pilot is promising but there are a few notes of concern:
- The show is entrenched in the premise that there is one soulmate. One shot. That’s it.
- Phoebe the Pythia freaks out at becoming mortal when she shouldn’t because the Pythia should be mortal anyway.
- The random setting of Los Angeles is never justified over any other city in the world. Gods should be reasonably able to shuttle around international destinations when needed, although a generic explanation is provided that overusing magic is weakening.
- Danny/Eros has traded in a bow and arrow for a gun that makes women fall into his bed -- which brings up the question of whether they are giving themselves to him of their own free will. Although the gun is destroyed during the pilot, no one likes a guy who roofies his bedmates.
- Soulmates should be torn apart for good reasons that make you root for their reunion. Not bad reasons. When people make stupid decisions (like choosing cheating narcissists in lieu of nice guys) it makes you not care whether they get the right guy.
- The show is condescending towards Internet dating because you get too many choices and date outside your immediate circle -- Gods forbid you cross cultural, economic or racial lines.
- The show occasionally attempts the whimsical narrative tone of Pushing Daisies but doesn’t commit to the style – making the instances cheesy.
The matchmaker portion of the show was entirely too neat, but may become more fleshed out once the show doesn’t need to reassert the premise of its mythological characters which are, for the most part, likeable if one-dimensional.
Plus it never hurts to have a feel-good show on your list.
