With all the teeny-bopping, blood-sucking, and
weird-interspecies-super-natural-romance dramas suffocating the theater and TV,
it’s about time a new TV show is treating it appropriately for what it is—an
unfortunate epidemic. Death Valley shows
a new spin on what life would be like if this trend ever manifests into a
reality.
Oh yeah, there are zombies too.
MTV’s new cop-mockumentory depicts the San Fernando Valley
in a fallout of zombies, werewolves and “vamps” and the special police unit,
the Undead Task Force, that enforces the valley’s adapted laws.
The cast is the five police officers and their captain that
make up the UTF. The task force is made of genuinely sincere friends who
constantly take shots at one another and handle their work in a crude,
unsettling manner.
Whether the UTF is going door-to-door to make sure
registered werewolves are detained during a fool moon or setting up a sting for
men who use vampire prostitutes in a trade of “blood for sex,” The UTF uses
practical police enforcement in not-so-practical scenarios.
The writing of Death Valley is witty enough to get away with referencing what the show is actually
satirizing and adds some modesty when an officer references True
Blood when questioned about the laws of
interaction between vampires and zombies.
The cast does a great job of conveying their tough love for
one another, and the back and forth between the six of them is natural and
believable.
But Death Valley is
more than just a buddy-cop mockumentory—it’s also a blind dive into a
pop-culture phenomenon put in an original light that most can relate to.
An easy comparison to make would be Reno 911, which is what lead me to an early write-off of
disinterest in the show’s early episodes. However, Death Valley has some elements going for it that Reno
911 never quite polished off, which
ultimately pulled me in.
Death Valley is able
to obtain a higher level of realness than Reno 911 was able to, which is strange considering the
paranormal v. normal contexts of the shows. The writing and production level of
the former give it a workable value of fantasy mixed with reality.
Imagine an episode of Cops filmed where the “Twilight” saga is set, mixed with the crude humor of
Comedy Central’s Ugly America and
a hint of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Bingo.
Despite its natural familiarity with Reno 911 and being aired on a network built on music and now
survived on reality TV, Death Valley even fooled me into thinking it was just another
seven-or-eight-episode-cancellation comedy that never catches on.
It’s not. Or at least, it shouldn’t be.
Death Valley has
enough going for it to hold on to its credentials as the only in your face
comedy capable of taking on the melodramatic trends of the faint skinned.
And on top of that, watching a couple of zombies getting
mowed over by bored, on-duty cops is more than therapeutic.
So don’t be concerned on the future of the paranormal
beauties that America's adolescence has obsessed itself with. The Undead Task Force has plans
for extermination.
The fascination with vampires and zombies and werewolves, (Oh my!) has always escaped me. And here is an entire TV show, wedded to a cop scenario.
ReplyDeleteOh my indeed.
The writer however, pulls off a pretty thorough review, doing a particularly nice job at the end, comparing the show to the well-known Reno 9-1-1 program.
In fact, by the end of the review, I am tempted to check this show out. Although skeptical himself, the writer gives it relatively high points and says it is watchable.
If I am in a zombie-like mood, it's possible.
Good column, but lock the doors. I hear zombies don't like journalist's much.