Remembering the Cape so you don't have to

Remember the Cape? Of course you don't, it was terrible.

Terrible

But in case you were semi curious about this short lived TV series (and no I don't think it's on Netflix, Disney or Binge), allow me to give you the gist of how bad it truly was...
Sitting down and watching the very first episode of the American superhero TV series The Cape was like jumping into a shiny new RUF Turbo and giving it more stick than the Collingwood Football Club Cheer Squad cops from Carlton fans. It moved along at such a pelt that before you can utter the words 'Wait, what was that about?' you've just been catapulted through the windscreen and into the nearest wall.

Behold my brick like stare and my brick like charisma.

And once you've sat through the first episode (if you make it to the end), you'll wonder why instead of a worthy addition to TV series about heroes and powers (like...er...I dunno, Heroes? Or maybe Misfits?) instead you've ended up with a perfect blueprint for a decent sized pig pen or smokehouse.

The bricks for said house of pigs is supplied in abundance by the hero of the show, Vince Faraday. The cop who gets framed and then decides to rip off one of his son's favorite comic characters and turn himself into a hero by the name of 'The Cape' is a cement mixer full of pure unfiltered charisma vacuum material. With the facial expressions of a cinder block and the acting range of a tip truck, David/Vince/Fashion Accessory lumps from one fast scene to the next before you have the chance to give a frig about him.

The only time I could ever sum up an emotion about him? When he got kicked in the nuts by a circus midget Rollo. 

I think I actually cheered.

I call this 'Brick Steel'

The wood comes from a couple of places - firstly from weird eyes business prick Peter Flemming who's really malicious bad guy Chess, a bloke who likes strange looking explosives, op shops (explains his dodgy maroon leather jacket) and wearing S and M jocks on his head while wearing contacts that make him look like a cat. Weird? Sure, but wait til you see what they did to poor bastard Hardman Vinnie Jones - he's got skin like a cheap Taiwanese knock off handbag, bad lines like homemade cocaine and they've called him appropriately 'Scales'. He also gets belted by Rollo the dwarf, making you wonder who the hero of this stuff really should be.

And the Ham? Delivered by the truckload by Keith David who plays Max Malini, the world's drunkest ringmaster. He goes so over the top he ends up on the other side and manages to somehow squeeze enough magical talent into our sandstone of a hero that he deserves a medal for breakthroughs in extreme community service. He doesn't get punched in the nuts or the knee by Rollo the dwarf but when he's doing his ham impersonation, he probably should be.

More Ham than a pig farmers xmas party

On top of the pig pen you find Summer Glau, terrific in almost everything she does (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Dollhouse, Firefly etc) and more lost  here than the entire cast of the Blair Witch Project. She plays mysterious blogger Orwell (oh a 1984 reference, I get it) who for someone who blogs seems to have a bucket load of coin on hand to be driving such a nice sports car and playing with computers. Obviously whatever she's writing about pays a lot more from Google Adsense does for beer and RX7 ramblings. 

And that leaves, er...the Cape itself. Made of Spider silk (right...), it can be as soft or as stiff as you'd like it to be (god, I need a shower now) and not only punch people in the throat, you can also use it to hook people around the neck and throw them backwards! Thank god the show is not called 'The Jocks.'

The story is pretty stock (cop gets framed, cop gets revenge) and while it does get interesting when you have to rely on a bunch of misfit circus freak bank robbers to help you out in sticky situations, thanks to the combined efforts of the 'forest' that makes up most of the acting pool, it's more camp than Rays Outdoors and packs more cheese than a major dairy. I'm not sure if it's an action, comedy, dark comedy or experiment in attempted narcolepsy resistance, but stick to Heroes or Misfits or Arrow. Even the characters on those shows who don't have powers or fashion accessories can still get it right..