Monday, September 04, 2006

Stuff I Like: American Gothic

American Gothic is a creepy Twin Peaksesque show set in the deep south of the States, in a creepy town called Trinity. Chief among the residents there is Sheriff Lucas Buck, a man with seemingly infernal powers that most of Trinity seem to be indebted to in some fashion.

The bulk of the show involves him trying to corrupt his illegitimate son Caleb, who it seems stands to inherit his dad's legacy - something he's none too pleased about given he says, "The sheriff's after me - he says he's my daddy". However Caleb has protectors in the form of his cousin, the local doctor and even the ghost of his dead autistic half-sister.

This series was awesome, so naturally for crimes against the mediocrity that is required in American television it was cancelled after only 1 season, ending with a rushed ending. It also suffered from having episodes shown in the wrong order, which is a bad idea as it had plenty of arcs that went on episode to episode. However I managed to track down the DVD of its one and only season so am raving about how great this show was. Even if the episodes are in the wrong order on the discs!

Addendum - watching this show is fun. I must've been 16 or so when I saw it, but the Sheriff's unique powers seem more blatant now than they did to me 10 years ago. He's blatantly teleporting around Trinity, which is why he's in almost every scene to get the last word. Heck in one of the episodes he even morphs into another character.

Also - it's a Sam Raimi show so naturally Bruce Campbell guest stars, as does the Raimi brother who played Joxter. Neither Raimite does particularly well in Trinity though.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is indeed fantastic, and I'm glad someone else I know likes it.

Claudia

Also, will scan the sci fi thingy photos for you.

Stuart said...

I never realised before but Dr. Matt, my favourite character - although watching it again, he never does anything meaningful after the pilot, was replaced by the CDC guy because the network told them to. I assumed he was intended to come back in Season 2 if it ever got made.