SDCC 2010: The Cape

The story opens with Vince Faraday, a cop in the city following up some leads on the mysterious "Chess", who has been terrorizing the city. Chess' latest threat is against the chief of police. Vince's partner Marty, has just left the police force to work for ARC, a private security subcontractor, a division of a major conglomerate run by Peter Fleming. The police chief is killed by Chess, using an explosively lethal chemical, which happens to be manufactured by ARC. Vince leaves the police force to join ARC, and after the latest incident involving Chess, the city becomes the first city with a privatized ARC police force. Vince gets a mysterious transmission from a vigilante known as Orwell, who tells Vince to check out some train cars. Vince discovers stuffed bears which are being used to smuggle the "explosive lethal chemical" into the city; he calls his former partner Marty, who promptly arrives with ARC security to tranquilize Vince, and when Vince awakens, he finds himself in the clutches of Chess.

Chess, of course is none other than captain of industry, Peter Fleming, who puts the mask on Vince and sets him loose for his ARC police squad to chase down; they chase Vince underneath one of the explosive gas containers, where he escapes by finding a hatch into secret tunnels inhabited by Max Malini's circus. Max Malini is a circus magician, who when not performing shows, robs banks -- as a former ARC employee, Vince's card key proves useful to them for robbing ARC. Vince convinces Max to train him to become the Cape, and after a training montage, Vince is ready to try and take down Chess at the docks -- a new shipment of the "explosive lethal chemical" is coming in, and Vince goes head to head with Dominic Raoul, one of Chess' henchmen who happens to have reptile-like skin. Max Malini is captured by Chess, and the circus goes to save him. Max Malini and The Cape escape, with the help of Orwell. Orwell and The Cape return to Orwell's base of operations (which is just a garage with a computer setup), where we learn that Orwell appears to be involved with Peter Fleming in some way.

If that sounds like a lot to pack into the 45 minute pilot, you're right. There's just too much going on, and it just follows too much of an origin story arc. The story is silly -- it's too stereotypically comic book-like, without any real depth to the characters. The supervillain/arch-nemesis already has money -- he's a caricature of a James Bond villain, who is evil for the sake of being evil to give The Cape someone to fight. The Cape needs skills and talents to be super hero worthy, and in this way, the creators leaned toward the Batman model of ordinary human, but highly skilled. Many of the characters in this are simply unnecessary, and silly -- there's a short strong man named Rollo, and Dominic doesn't need to be reptilian/mutated. While Vince's family provides for him some motivation to be who he is, I don't know if it is necessary to begin the series at this point.

This pilot episode could be cut apart to be used as origin pieces that get revealed as the show goes on -- the show needs to be shown in the middle of the action -- to really get to the heart of what the show is about, rather than just a pitch that made it to the pilot stage.