Teen Wolf (TV Review)

(2/5 stars)

The concept of this show is based on the movie Teen Wolf from 1985 starring Michael J. Fox. MTV has updated some ideas from the original as the vampire/werewolf craze is in full swing. The young teen, Scott McCall (Tyler Posey), is a lacrosse player for his local high school and while in the woods one night is attacked by a werewolf. Scott finds later that he had a small bite and in a short period of time he feels his body changing.

Stiles (Dylan O'Brien) is Scott's best friend who becomes his confidant and is vastly more knowledgeable about werewolves. What he does not know, he begins to research so together they can keep Scott from being discovered. There is a problem when they find that the grounds where Scott was attacked belong to Derek Hale (Tyler Hoechlin) who is not a very friendly neighbor. It is not long before Scott and Stiles realize that Derek may not only be a werewolf, but he may have been responsible for recent deaths.

As with all vampire story-lines there is a girl that Scott is attracted to but suspicion is swirling around her. Allison Argent (Crystal Reed) begins to return the affection that brings them closer, but with Scott's body commencing a change soon to come he keeps her at an arm’s distance. Clearly when Scott is on the field, the aggression of the game brings out the fierce side, but when he is left alone with Allison it allows him to have more control.

The music is patterned after the CW Television concept which does not reflect well for MTV a.k.a. music television. Can’t a music television channel do better than copying music from another station? Then again, it is MTV and they have been anything but original since the day they stopped playing videos. That is why there is MTV2, so the video channel can stay intact and use the secondary channel for shows.

Tyler Posey is exactly how I would have pictured Vladimir Tod from book series written by Heather Brewer called "The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod." There are so many books and movies released with storylines based on vampires; it is hard to figure why they would fall back on something already done. Melissa De La Cruz has written a superb series called "Blue Bloods" with so much potential for the MTV family. The networks have relied so much on reality TV that they cannot fathom creativity.

Several times as the show prepares to end a scene before a commercial, they try to build suspense with extended camera panning while music plays until it goes black. This becomes repetitive and is applied to so many end scenes that it does not hold the attention of the viewer. Usually this happens due to lack of dialogue and they need to fill the time. The young actors are very good, but the story lacks excitement and suspense. One good highlight is that they are not broody and feel-sorry-for-myself characters. The actors play it very down to earth which can be credited to the director.

Since MTV chose to preview the pilot immediately after the MTV Movie Awards it should get a huge viewing audience. This does not mean that they will tune in on a continuing basis. After the first two episodes, it is not likely that viewers will return far beyond the next two shows.