So, I’ve been tripping on two TV shows recently:

Riverdale


If you were a middle-class child of the ’80s or ’90s growing up in India, you would probably familiar with Archie Comics. Even if they described a reality far removed from our own, resulting in me mispronouncing exclamations such as “Egad”, they were totally a part of my childhood. At one point, we got our hands on a film based on the comics and it was such a thrill watching those lines comes to life.

So obviously when I heard that there was now a TV series based on the comics, I had to check it out. And then I got hooked. The series is dark, centering on a murder mystery, in this sense completely untrue to the original which was frothy throughout, and yet, this is probably the only way it could be translated into the 21st C. It is over-the-top in visualisation but again, I think that is needed to deal with something that could otherwise fall into kitsch. The characters though look exactly as you would imagine them, except Jughead, who is hot (from the food-obsessed outsider, he is now the dark brooding outsider. It just occurred to me that the divorcing of Jughead from food is sacrilegious and yet I was too busy lusting after him to notice at the time. Jughead was my favourite character in the comics, and he retain that status in the series). Also, they play up the chemistry between characters exactly that was latent in the comics. I also love what they did with the Pussycats. The soundtrack of this series is amazing.

Have you caught this series? Who was/is your favourite character?

Twin Peaks


So after I binged on Riverdale, I had to find something else, and Twin Peaks had been on the periphery of my attention. However, when I found the series online, and started watching, I was struck by how retro it was in feel. And then I realised the reason was that I was watching the original series from the 90s. It was/is apparently a classic so I’m not complaining; anyway, by the time I realised that the hype recently was about the Season 3 remake, I was hooked.

The series centers on the murder of a small-town sweetheart, and while I signed up for a murder mystery, it suddenly turned out to have a very creepy supernational element, which I only just managed to stomach (because I was so hooked I couldn’t stop watching although I was scared semi-shitless). The horror genre is not my strong point. It’s not all horror, so don’t be scared off, if I could watch it so could you, just be warned that it’s there. I’m now mid-way through Season 2 which has slowed down a lot after the primary mystery got solved, but I can’t stop watching.

Have you watched this one? Do you love it? I can’t say that there’s any character I completely love (well, maybe Audrey) but there are a few I can’t stand: James, Donna when she’s with James, and increasingly Sheriff Truman.