The Secret Circle

The Secret Circle is a teen witch show, a series that try to ride the teen fantasy craze before it sizzled out. It is based on a young adult book series, because what wasn’t in 2011, but since I haven’t read any of the books I can’t tell you how faithful it is. The same author wrote the Vampire Diaries though so take from that what you will.

The show follows Cassie a young witch who after the loss of her mother in a mysterious fire, moves in with her grandmother and begins to discover her powers. She is quickly swept into the local teen coven, and shenanigans ensue as teenage hormones run rampant, and the elder coven, pretty much the parents, aren’t too happy about their kids leaning magic. They have all sworn off it, you see, after some horrible, horrible, mystery accident.

So Cassie embarks on a journey to understand herself, her past, and unravel a few mysteries and intrigues. Pretty straightforward I’d say if it wasn’t for the dozens of storylines interweaving into a mess of a bird’s nest in a pile of hay.

Personally, I do not recommend. I did not enjoy it, and though it had some nice concepts of magic and okay effects, it was all too glossy and too slow for my tastes.

Pass.

But, nevertheless, let’s examine the pilot episode.

It opens with a narration, rambling something about destiny, as our protagonist Cassie, played by Britt Robertson, is driving home on an empty road. The action doesn’t take long to kick in as another car comes out of  nowhere and almost crashes into hers, and she pops a tire trying to swerve away. But said actions trickles dry just as fast, replaced by awkwardness as a car stops to observe and then flees like a creeper when Cassie asks for help.

She calls her mom instead to let her know of her tardiness, but things start magically going very wrong on that side. A water faucet explodes, the oven catches fire, all the while a creepy man loiters nearby, spilling a bottle and then flicking a lighter. We get some sense how magic works in that universe, so far so good on the build up part.

The creeper starts lighting matches and accordingly the house catches fire burning Cassie’s mother to a crisp.

My only problem here, is that they showed the killer’s face. They could have easily built more mystery and suspense if they hadn’t revealed the culprit right away.

We cut to one month later and teary eyed Cassie staring at some random lake in some random woods with some random pop song playing in the background. It’s here that the series begin trying too hard hitting on the way nearly every cliche in the book.

Cassie moves to a new town to live with her alienated grandmother, alienated because this is the first time the girl’s ever been to her house. Apparently her mother never went to visit her relatives, nor spoke about the past.

Reunion and trying to establish relationship with a relative, check. Mysterious past to investigate, check. Dead father she never knew, naturally. A hot boy neighbour who likes to stand in front of the window shirtless, of course. But that’s okay, they paint him as creepy. Despite the flowy blond hair and all the abs. And for some reason the show is stuck on a lullaby. The narration started with it, the opening title has it, Casie is humming it and the piano soundtrack mimics it. So a mysterious, creepy melody that her mum used to hum, check.

Like in any other teen show ever, Cassie is simply slumped by the fact she needs to start a new school, because school, just ugh. And the list continues, looking at dead mom’s pics before bed, check. All right already, we get it she misses her mom, move on.

So let’s see the new school, meet the president and talk some more about Cassie’s mother and how everyone knew and cherished her, and she was the queen and all, yet she would never talk about her life in her hometown. Spooky! I mean, foreshadowing!

But moving on to creepy-mac-abster, and his equally creepy friend as they whisper around about Cassie like total creepsters. The new guy then proceeds to creepily stare at her. Did I put that across as clear as the series did? And for those who still didn’t get it, it’s all very creepy. But wait, are you sure you got it? Here are two creepy chicks, commenting on how pretty she is in her face without blinking. Just in case you still didn’t, another girl approaches, who also seems to know everything about her, and invites her to hang out after school.

Of course, as a new girl trying to fit in, Cassie goes, and she can’t walk ten metres without someone stopping her to say how much she looks like her mother and how well they knew her. In this case, it’s the owner of the diner she was invited to. Oh look at that, he’s the father of the second creepster guy. Don’t forget to have him ramble about how much he loved her mother, but she chose another guy, but it’s okay, it was all written in the stars.

How long into the episode are we again? Twelve minutes… Holy, fucking, hell. I need a break. But I fear if I take one, I will spontaneously forget I was ever reviewing this thing.

So marching on.

We meet Adam, played by Thomas Dekker, and our most obvious FRI for the day. Remember folks, romantic interest equals long, creepy, silent stares and stuttering every time the creature tries to interact with our Sue.

And the two bitchy witches arrive to save us from the awkwardness. It is replaced, instead, by creepiness, as the newcomers start discussing Cassie’s life and past in front of her, commenting on how hot Adam is every now and then.

Our protagonist tries her best to act human, and reasonable, unlike everyone else, so she gets the fuck away the moment the head bitch blinks.

The two creepy girls proceed to watch her through the window discussing how she doesn’t seem to know, and then using magic mess with the engine, setting in on fire and then locking Cassie in the car. Clueless protagonist and evil witches, check.

It was all to determine if she had magical powers of course, no ill intent, besides Adam was there to save her by staring very hard at the fire to extinguish it.

But I don’t think we had had enough character conflict so far, so introducing Adam’s girlfriend, the girl that invited Cassie to the diner in the first place.

So while Adam and Cassie are cranking up the uncomfortable teen attraction levels, as much as two straw dolls can, the girlfriend decides to actually be useful and confronts the bitchy witch. That’s okay though, she’s only worried about exposure, because you see, they are on the same side. Bitchy witch reveals that it wasn’t her who sent the car on fire but Cassie because she’s strong and has potential and they want her in the club. The trick is, to have any sort of real magical power, a circle of witches is needed and Cassie is the last member. But a chasm forms between miss girlfriend and bitchy witch as one wants to take it slow, and the other not so much.

Around Cassie, things start getting freakier, and she begins to suspect something is off, just not what.

But that’s besides the point, time to walk ten more metres and meet someone else who recognises her and knows everything about her and her mom.

I’ll make it short from here. It continues like this, building up, weird people meeting, talking to her about her mother, the parent figures vaguely speaking about magic and past tragedies, you know to establish that mystery element and all, and girlfriend character deciding to reveal everything to Cassie and take her into their circle.

She does that by leading her into a creepy house to meet the rest of the creepy teenagers. Naturally, the girl freaks and runs the hell away. But that’s okay, captain Adam comes to the rescue and shows her the wonders of magic, but now without some forced romantic tension of course.

Cassie still leaves and the creepsters reconvene to plot some ritual they need to perform to put their power under control. Their group quickly falls apart as bitchy witch is being all bitchy and power hungry.

Meanwhile, our protagonist seeks an answer with Adam’s cryptic, crazy father, but just before he can reveal anything relevant he is interrupted by random street creepster number two that she met earlier in the day. Still he foreshadows the chance her father is alive. Alive and a “very, very bad man.”

But moving on to bitchy getting drunk on power, turning off random lights and starting thunderstorms. A storm, she can’t stop so we can have some tension and maybe action as Cassie rides to the rescue to help them.

Cassie then goes home, creepy parent elements are being creepy, Adams pops for a visit to force spike the tension, she finds a magic book and a mysterious letter from her mother, and that’s it, episode over.

I guess they managed to establish the story and the characters in one episode, kudos to that. But one thing I don’t get. There’s magic in the world, yet this story insists on keeping us locked in this humany, teeny drama as a bunch of adults try to control the use of magic while the kids rebel. While that’s an adequate plot idea, the scope is just too small and too pathetic, the writer could have done so much more if she had escaped the frames of family drama.

Overall, I am utterly unimpressed. The series is mediocre at best and treats its audience like a brain dead horse. And the build up drags on and on with its moody music and establishment scenes. The dialogue is just as obvious and dull, stating everything, all the time, leaving nothing to subtlety.

Though the biggest issue, which becomes obvious through the first few episodes, is that the story is too ambitious. It introduces a lot of trends, and characters, and relations, and mysteries, and themes, and conflicts, and everything, and very early on it becomes clear that it would be impossible to resolve all of it in a few seasons without botching up or rushing the plot.

That was my main problem with the show and the reason I dropped it, it was just overloaded with things doomed to never to be complete as the series got cancelled after one season.

Still, for any witch themes lovers, starved for some hands on magic, it’s something to play in the background on a boring day.