The Gates is the same old, same old – this time, with vampires

I recently watched the pilot episode of ABC’s new drama, The Gates. I wanted to be excited about something new and different on ABC, but that’s burned me in the past (Eli Stone, anyone?). I wanted to embrace another quality supernatural drama, because although there have been a lot of Buffy wannabes, not too many of the new generation shows are very good (with the exception of The Vampire Diaries and Being Human, and Supernatural which so doesn’t count because that show is nobody’s wannabe).

Now, I’m not saying The Gates was necessarily bad — in fact, I may give it a couple of more episodes to see if it can grow. What disappointed me the most was how everything on ABC seems to have the same feel to it. Remember Eastwick? Probably not, because it failed after less than a season. Eastwick was ABC’s Desperate Housewives but with witches.

Yeah, so The Gates seems to be inspired by Desperate Housewives as well, but we have The Gates community instead of Wisteria Lane; we’ve got witches and vampires and werewolves and who knows what else; and I suppose we have a little more law enforcement involvement than DH, and perhaps a little less humor.

ABC just doesn’t seem to be able to do anything different.

If I were to accuse ABC of taking their inspiration from other networks (the horror!), I’d go with a cross between The Vampire Diaries (and you had to know the networks were going to try to capitalize on The CW’s success) and 90210/Melrose Place. We’ve got the supernatural element and the high school story lines and the adult story lines. The catty witches are like any other bitchy divas on any other show, snarking at each other with claws out (and perhaps spells cast in the near future).

A reluctant vampire with bloodlust and her sire in perfect control. A teenaged werewolf trying not to join the werewolf gang in The Gates community, and trying to control his anger that his girlfriend is falling for the new kid. There’s nothing new here.

Could they break out and become unique? Absolutely. But every show that’s tried that on ABC has failed (Eli Stone, Dirty Sexy Money, Happy Town, Invasion, The Nine, Caveman … yeah, I just took that too far) . Then again, the ones that haven’t have failed lately too (The Deep End, Eastwick, FlashForward, Cupid, Hank….).

All the complaints we have about NBC’s questionable decisions lately are helping ABC look good, but I don’t have high hopes for their new season based on The Gates.

What do you think? Are you excited to see a new vampire TV show? Do you have any faith in ABC?

Clacked by Debbie McDuffee
on Jun 10, 2010 @ 10:03 EST5EDT