CW's "Secret Circle" previews possible season 2

[David]

http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2012/05/the-secret-circle-season-2-what-to-expect-if-the-show-gets-renewed.html

'The Secret Circle' Season 2: What to expect if the show gets renewed
By Carina Adly MacKenzie

"The Secret Circle" has yet to be renewed (or canceled) for The CW's
Fall 2012 season, but after last night's epic season finale, it's
clear that executive producer Andrew Miller has some big plans should
the show go on.

After a slight ratings dip, the viewership did rise again and remained
steady for the Season 1 finale. Creatively, the finale offered an
incredible launch for a series of fascinating storylines, so we're
hoping that The CW recognizes that and gives the show another chance.
We'll find out for sure in just a few days, when The CW announces
their Fall schedule, but in the meantime, we wrestled as much
information as we could from Miller, so here are 5 things to expect
from Season 2.

1. Faye will discover that having her individual magic isn't all it's
cracked up to be. Phoebe Tonkin asked Miller to give Faye a "Matilda"
moment in the finale, hence her champagne celebration with Melissa --
but this is television, and the celebration can't last too long. "Next
year, The Circle will be completely fractured," Miller says. "They
know what it is to be bound, they've struggled through being connected
to people when you don't want to be, and this next people is about
being apart and finding strength that way. Faye is going to very
quickly run out of 'Matilda' moments, because it won't be enough,
especially with Cassie and Diana having so much more power than her."

2. The Balcoin kids are going to add a whole new element to the show.
That shot of the four figures overlooking Chance Harbor was a perfect
tease. So what kind of people will these new characters be? "A. Sexy,
B. sexy, and C., interesting," Miller laughs. "Those four characters
are not all Balcoin. We'll find that this goal of putting a perfect
circle together won't be as easy as Blackwell had hoped. They'll bring
some moral ambiguity to the battle between good and evil in Chance
Harbor at a time when the witches that we have are at a crossroads
with their own sense of right and wrong."

They'll be particularly intriguing to Faye. "She'll be the lynchpin
between these Balcoin kids coming in and the existing Circle. She'll
seek out the Balcoins, she'll utilize the Balcoins and their power in
a very manipulative way."

3. Jake will take his grandfather's note very, very seriously. "Royce
was more right than anyone wanted to believe, though he was still a
bit crazy. Jake is going to take up his struggle to stop the darkness
from seeping into his world and the people he loves. The warning is
going to position Jake to be the most badass good guy of all time. An
avenging angel with the kind of anger issues that Jake has is going to
be really fun to see once he faces the Balcoin kids."

4. Adam's vulnerabilities will bring his dark side to the surface. As
Jake fights the darkness, Adam has, interestingly enough, invited it
in. When we first met Adam, he was the good guy. He always did the
right thing. "When push came to shove, and he went to rescue the two
huge loves of his life, Cassie and Diana, he was a useless piece of
shit to Blackwell's dark magic. It was like he was the skinny kid on
the beach getting sand kicked on him by the bullies, and he sends away
from the back of a comic book to be a muscle man so he can never be in
that position again. They thought that he was the best guy to take
care of the skull, but in fact, he was the worst. He was the most
emotionally vulnerable, the most fragile, and the most susceptible to
the seductive power of that skull."

5. Grant is genuinely a nice guy... but he's got some secrets. We love
Diana's sweet, rom-com love affair with the hot yacht guy, and though
Miller tells us that Grant won't suddenly be revealed to be an evil
witch, he is involved in some shady stuff. "I couldn't break Diana's
heart that much by turning him into a complete bad guy," he says.
"However, I can tell you that Grant works on a yacht for some guy who
seems to be coming in and out of Chance Harbor more than anybody with
a yacht should be coming in and out of Chance Harbor. Grant is
involved with more than he's letting on, and the people he's working
with are perhaps more interesting than you'd expect."

We've got more Season 2 scoop for you on the way... and of course, we
promise to update you immediately when we get word of whether there
will be a Season 2. Keep those fingers crossed!

[Rob Jensen]

On Fri, 11 May 2012 15:48:50 -0400, David <diml...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2012/05/the-secret-circle-season-2-what-to-expect-if-the-show-gets-renewed.html
>
>'The Secret Circle' Season 2: What to expect if the show gets renewed
>By Carina Adly MacKenzie
>
>"The Secret Circle" has yet to be renewed (or canceled) for The CW's
>Fall 2012 season, but after last night's epic season finale, it's
>clear that executive producer Andrew Miller has some big plans should
>the show go on.
>
>After a slight ratings dip, the viewership did rise again and remained
>steady for the Season 1 finale.

I wonder how Secret Circle does when DVR, iTunes and other
timeshifting are factored in.

Also, when you take into consideration that Nikita's live ratings are
just about the same, but it does well overseas, it seems to me like
the fantasy-based Secret Circle could be exportable, too.

>Creatively, the finale offered an
>incredible launch for a series of fascinating storylines, so we're
>hoping that The CW recognizes that and gives the show another chance.
>We'll find out for sure in just a few days, when The CW announces
>their Fall schedule, but in the meantime, we wrestled as much
>information as we could from Miller, so here are 5 things to expect
>from Season 2.
>
>1. Faye will discover that having her individual magic isn't all it's
>cracked up to be. Phoebe Tonkin asked Miller to give Faye a "Matilda"
>moment in the finale, hence her champagne celebration with Melissa --
>but this is television, and the celebration can't last too long. "Next
>year, The Circle will be completely fractured," Miller says. "They
>know what it is to be bound, they've struggled through being connected
>to people when you don't want to be, and this next people is about
>being apart and finding strength that way. Faye is going to very
>quickly run out of 'Matilda' moments, because it won't be enough,
>especially with Cassie and Diana having so much more power than her."

Phoebe Tonkin is hysterical as Faye. it would be interesting to see
her become the voice of reason that the archetypal foundations of the
characters would suggest that Diana should be (but shouldn't.)

>2. The Balcoin kids are going to add a whole new element to the show.
>That shot of the four figures overlooking Chance Harbor was a perfect
>tease. So what kind of people will these new characters be? "A. Sexy,
>B. sexy, and C., interesting," Miller laughs. "Those four characters
>are not all Balcoin. We'll find that this goal of putting a perfect
>circle together won't be as easy as Blackwell had hoped. They'll bring
>some moral ambiguity to the battle between good and evil in Chance
>Harbor at a time when the witches that we have are at a crossroads
>with their own sense of right and wrong."
>
>They'll be particularly intriguing to Faye. "She'll be the lynchpin
>between these Balcoin kids coming in and the existing Circle. She'll
>seek out the Balcoins, she'll utilize the Balcoins and their power in
>a very manipulative way."

My problem with that reveal is that it was all four of remaining
Balcoin kids rather than just one or two. That mass introduction makes
it look like these kids are going to be considered as one villainous
unit rather than characters that can be introduced separately to stand
on their own as characters regardless of their moral alignments or
even that they can be swayed from what will likely be a dark
alignment.

By comparison, the show's older sister, The Vampire Diaries,
introduced the entire Original Family gradually over the course of the
first season and a half and their alignments and personal morals vary
wildly, with Elijah and Rebecca being the most sympathetic and even,
especially in the case of Elijah, likable.

I fear that, by introducing all four Balcoins at the same time, in a
way that will likely mean that they don't get to breathe as characters
in the same way that the Originals do, the show will have nowhere to
go when it burns through its plotlines as relentlessly as The Vampire
Diaries does.

>3. Jake will take his grandfather's note very, very seriously. "Royce
>was more right than anyone wanted to believe, though he was still a
>bit crazy. Jake is going to take up his struggle to stop the darkness
>from seeping into his world and the people he loves. The warning is
>going to position Jake to be the most badass good guy of all time. An
>avenging angel with the kind of anger issues that Jake has is going to
>be really fun to see once he faces the Balcoin kids."

They've got to have Jake own up to and *really* come to terms with the
fact that he's klled other witches, not the least of them being that
shopkeeper that he toasted (literally) at midseason. His killing the
hunter, Eben, in last night's finale was effective as a step in his
storyline with respect to his willingness to kill, to be sure, but
being brainwashed by the Hunters beforehand only goes so far when it's
rooted in his misplaced (self-)hatred of witches for the deaths of his
parents. He should still have some sort of clear comeuppance and sense
of penance inflicted on him. Perhaps by the ghost of that shopkeeper.

>4. Adam's vulnerabilities will bring his dark side to the surface. As
>Jake fights the darkness, Adam has, interestingly enough, invited it
>in. When we first met Adam, he was the good guy. He always did the
>right thing. "When push came to shove, and he went to rescue the two
>huge loves of his life, Cassie and Diana, he was a useless piece of
>shit to Blackwell's dark magic. It was like he was the skinny kid on
>the beach getting sand kicked on him by the bullies, and he sends away
>from the back of a comic book to be a muscle man so he can never be in
>that position again. They thought that he was the best guy to take
>care of the skull, but in fact, he was the worst. He was the most
>emotionally vulnerable, the most fragile, and the most susceptible to
>the seductive power of that skull."

I just think that htey need to have another male character in the
Circle to counterbalance Adam's too-seriousness. Jake's too old to
work in that way as a peer. It would be interesting to see if the show
could come up with a reason to bring someone who isn't from one of the
Six Families into the circle just to a) define whether or not the
Circle can and b) to get away from the whole "the circle is six"
thing, which has never made numeric sense to when juxtaposed against
the five of a Pentagram or the lucky number 7.

>5. Grant is genuinely a nice guy... but he's got some secrets. We love
>Diana's sweet, rom-com love affair with the hot yacht guy, and though
>Miller tells us that Grant won't suddenly be revealed to be an evil
>witch, he is involved in some shady stuff. "I couldn't break Diana's
>heart that much by turning him into a complete bad guy," he says.
>"However, I can tell you that Grant works on a yacht for some guy who
>seems to be coming in and out of Chance Harbor more than anybody with
>a yacht should be coming in and out of Chance Harbor. Grant is
>involved with more than he's letting on, and the people he's working
>with are perhaps more interesting than you'd expect."

My first thought: "So *that's* how the Hunters are sneaking into
Chance Harbor!"

>We've got more Season 2 scoop for you on the way... and of course, we
>promise to update you immediately when we get word of whether there
>will be a Season 2. Keep those fingers crossed!

If the show gets a second season, I think they need to do a couple of
things not already suggested above:

1) They need to shift the focus of the show away from Cassie and onto
Diana. Between Life Unexpected and this first season of Cicle, Britt
Robertson has shown that, like Alexis Bledel on Gilmore Girls, she
just doesn't have a lot of depth and has therefore failed to make the
script's case that Cassie is both intelligent enough to lead the group
and credulous enough to fail to ask Blackwell the type of questions
that Diana was asking even before she found out that she was a Balcoin
and even before Charles warned her to be skeptical.

Conversely, Shelly Henning is a real find, able to play a lot of the
colors of internal emotional conflict that Robertson hasn't been able
to play as either Cassie or the much more complex Lux. She's played
Diana's free-floating disappointment at no longer being the sole
leader of the Circle with a deftness that has made her character
immensely likeable because she's tempered Diana's disappointment with
a sure-footed resilience. The writers also made a nifty course
adjustment at midseason, having Diana confront what it means to be
single again after breaking up with Adam that avoided some typical
melodramatic pitfalls like acting out ala Marissa on The O.C. or just
going completely whiny like Serena on Gossip Girl or falling
completely apart like Jen on Dawson's Creek.

She's kinda beguiling like Joey Potter, so it would make more sense
that since this is a younger show than Dawson's Creek was at the time
that it fully embraced Joey as *the* central character (season 3,
IMO), for this show to shift its focus from its Dawson (Cassie) to its
Joey (Diana).

Also, they've gotta change that damn theme song! The melody is fine,
but the elementary-school-ish dah-dah vocal arrangement has *got* to
go. It's so fucking annoying to hear at the start of the episode that
I've got to believe that it single-handedly turned off viewers that it
shouldn't have lost at the top of the season.

-- Rob

[Ian J. Ball]

In article <07rqq7dujkcqvbeh1...@4ax.com>,
David <diml...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2012/05/the-secret-circle-season-2-wha

> t-to-expect-if-the-show-gets-renewed.html
>
> 'The Secret Circle' Season 2: What to expect if the show gets renewed
> By Carina Adly MacKenzie
>
> "The Secret Circle" has yet to be renewed (or canceled) for The CW's
> Fall 2012 season, but after last night's epic season finale, it's
> clear that executive producer Andrew Miller has some big plans should
> the show go on.
>
> After a slight ratings dip, the viewership did rise again and remained
> steady for the Season 1 finale. Creatively, the finale offered an
> incredible launch for a series of fascinating storylines, so we're
> hoping that The CW recognizes that and gives the show another chance.
> We'll find out for sure in just a few days, when The CW announces
> their Fall schedule, but in the meantime, we wrestled as much
> information as we could from Miller, so here are 5 things to expect
> from Season 2.
>

> 2. The Balcoin kids are going to add a whole new element to the show.
> That shot of the four figures overlooking Chance Harbor was a perfect
> tease. So what kind of people will these new characters be? "A. Sexy,
> B. sexy, and C., interesting," Miller laughs. "Those four characters
> are not all Balcoin. We'll find that this goal of putting a perfect
> circle together won't be as easy as Blackwell had hoped. They'll bring
> some moral ambiguity to the battle between good and evil in Chance
> Harbor at a time when the witches that we have are at a crossroads
> with their own sense of right and wrong."
>
> They'll be particularly intriguing to Faye. "She'll be the lynchpin
> between these Balcoin kids coming in and the existing Circle. She'll
> seek out the Balcoins, she'll utilize the Balcoins and their power in
> a very manipulative way."
>

> 4. Adam's vulnerabilities will bring his dark side to the surface. As
> Jake fights the darkness, Adam has, interestingly enough, invited it
> in. When we first met Adam, he was the good guy. He always did the
> right thing. "When push came to shove, and he went to rescue the two
> huge loves of his life, Cassie and Diana, he was a useless piece of
> shit to Blackwell's dark magic. It was like he was the skinny kid on
> the beach getting sand kicked on him by the bullies, and he sends away
> from the back of a comic book to be a muscle man so he can never be in
> that position again. They thought that he was the best guy to take
> care of the skull, but in fact, he was the worst. He was the most
> emotionally vulnerable, the most fragile, and the most susceptible to
> the seductive power of that skull."

Meh. I'm extremely ambivalent about these two developments.

Not that it matters, as it seems like The CW is on a self-destruct
course anyways...

> 5. Grant is genuinely a nice guy... but he's got some secrets. We love
> Diana's sweet, rom-com love affair with the hot yacht guy, and though
> Miller tells us that Grant won't suddenly be revealed to be an evil
> witch, he is involved in some shady stuff. "I couldn't break Diana's
> heart that much by turning him into a complete bad guy," he says.
> "However, I can tell you that Grant works on a yacht for some guy who
> seems to be coming in and out of Chance Harbor more than anybody with
> a yacht should be coming in and out of Chance Harbor. Grant is
> involved with more than he's letting on, and the people he's working
> with are perhaps more interesting than you'd expect."

I could live without this entire storyline, to be honest.

--
"We're gonna need a lot of therapy." - the character Rachel in "Bunnyman"
(named 1 of the 5 Worst Horror Films of 2011 by 28DaysLaterAnalysis.com!!)

[Lord Vader III]

On 5/11/2012 2:48 PM, David wrote:
> http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2012/05/the-secret-circle-season-2-what-to-expect-if-the-show-gets-renewed.html
>
> 'The Secret Circle' Season 2: What to expect if the show gets renewed
> By Carina Adly MacKenzie

So much for that:

CW’s ‘Gossip Girl’, ‘Nikita’ & ‘Dixie’ Renewed; ‘Ringer’ & ‘Secret
Circle’ Gone
http://www.deadline.com/2012/05/cws-nikita-hart-of-dixie-renewed/

LVIII

[Jim G.]

Rob Jensen sent the following on 5/11/2012 4:27 PM:

> My problem with that reveal is that it was all four of remaining
> Balcoin kids rather than just one or two. That mass introduction makes
> it look like these kids are going to be considered as one villainous
> unit rather than characters that can be introduced separately to stand
> on their own as characters regardless of their moral alignments or
> even that they can be swayed from what will likely be a dark
> alignment.

My problem with it is that it means four more munchkins taking time away
from the adults, who have already had too much time taken away from
them. If the show wants to give up any ambitions of being more than just
a Disney Channel outing on another network, then I'm probably better off
just being cut off, as opposed to continuing to watch a show degenerate
into *total* teen angst. Beyond that, this show at its best is
television junk food, so any efforts to discuss it in serious or
profound dramatic terms is a waste, IMO. It's like discussing plate
presentation for serving the Big Macs that you picked up at the
drive-thru on the way home.

--
Jim G. | Waukesha, WI
"I find it's best if you just ... go with it." -- Lincoln Lee, providing
us with FRINGE's "Every question just leads to more questions" moment

[Jim G.]

Ian J. Ball sent the following on 5/11/2012 4:59 PM:

Agreed. As I keep harping on, these are 16-year-old kids, so their story
lines should have them cavorting about with other kids, not with guys
old enough to be out of college already. That's just wrong on a whole
lot of levels. And as I also said before, it would have been better to
make the younger cast college-aged and plant 'em in Chance Harbor
College, but that probably would have killed the show in CW's key
tweener demographic...

[Adam H. Kerman]

Rob Jensen <Shut...@aol.com> wrote:

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>>http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2012/05/the-secret-circle-season-2-what-to-expect-if-the-show-gets-renewed.html

>>'The Secret Circle' Season 2: What to expect if the show gets renewed
>>By Carina Adly MacKenzie

>>. . . Creatively, the finale offered an incredible launch for a series of

>>fascinating storylines, so we're hoping that The CW recognizes that and
>>gives the show another chance. We'll find out for sure in just a few
>>days, when The CW announces their Fall schedule, but in the meantime,
>>we wrestled as much information as we could from Miller, so here are
>>5 things to expect from Season 2.

>>1. Faye will discover that having her individual magic isn't all it's
>>cracked up to be. Phoebe Tonkin asked Miller to give Faye a "Matilda"
>>moment in the finale, hence her champagne celebration with Melissa --
>>but this is television, and the celebration can't last too long. "Next
>>year, The Circle will be completely fractured," Miller says. "They
>>know what it is to be bound, they've struggled through being connected
>>to people when you don't want to be, and this next people is about
>>being apart and finding strength that way. Faye is going to very
>>quickly run out of 'Matilda' moments, because it won't be enough,
>>especially with Cassie and Diana having so much more power than her."

>Phoebe Tonkin is hysterical as Faye. it would be interesting to see
>her become the voice of reason that the archetypal foundations of the
>characters would suggest that Diana should be (but shouldn't.)

Absolutely agree. She's the most memorable newcomer in this dreary
television season, newcomer at least to American television. I'll assume
she's done fine work in Australia as a child actress for a number of
years, though I'm not likely to see it.

>>2. The Balcoin kids are going to add a whole new element to the show.
>>That shot of the four figures overlooking Chance Harbor was a perfect
>>tease. So what kind of people will these new characters be? "A. Sexy,
>>B. sexy, and C., interesting," Miller laughs. "Those four characters
>>are not all Balcoin. We'll find that this goal of putting a perfect
>>circle together won't be as easy as Blackwell had hoped. They'll bring
>>some moral ambiguity to the battle between good and evil in Chance
>>Harbor at a time when the witches that we have are at a crossroads
>>with their own sense of right and wrong."

>>They'll be particularly intriguing to Faye. "She'll be the lynchpin
>>between these Balcoin kids coming in and the existing Circle. She'll
>>seek out the Balcoins, she'll utilize the Balcoins and their power in
>>a very manipulative way."

>My problem with that reveal is that it was all four of remaining
>Balcoin kids rather than just one or two. That mass introduction makes
>it look like these kids are going to be considered as one villainous
>unit rather than characters that can be introduced separately to stand
>on their own as characters regardless of their moral alignments or
>even that they can be swayed from what will likely be a dark
>alignment.

That's a potential problem with the story telling, sure.

>By comparison, the show's older sister, The Vampire Diaries,
>introduced the entire Original Family gradually over the course of the
>first season and a half and their alignments and personal morals vary
>wildly, with Elijah and Rebecca being the most sympathetic and even,
>especially in the case of Elijah, likable.

Eh. I hated the Originals, who pretty much ruined a nice little story
about a pretty girl with misplaced empathy who thinks she means well,
but falls in love with the wrong boy and destroys the lives of all around
her because her love for him is all-consuming.

Seemed to me that the writers decided that one Original wasn't taking the
story any place interesting, so let's keep piling them on, till we
introduce their parents.

>I fear that, by introducing all four Balcoins at the same time, in a
>way that will likely mean that they don't get to breathe as characters
>in the same way that the Originals do, the show will have nowhere to
>go when it burns through its plotlines as relentlessly as The Vampire
>Diaries does.

Perhaps this would have been an accurate prediction.

>>3. Jake will take his grandfather's note very, very seriously. "Royce
>>was more right than anyone wanted to believe, though he was still a
>>bit crazy. Jake is going to take up his struggle to stop the darkness
>>from seeping into his world and the people he loves. The warning is
>>going to position Jake to be the most badass good guy of all time. An
>>avenging angel with the kind of anger issues that Jake has is going to
>>be really fun to see once he faces the Balcoin kids."

>They've got to have Jake own up to and *really* come to terms with the
>fact that he's klled other witches, not the least of them being that
>shopkeeper that he toasted (literally) at midseason. His killing the
>hunter, Eben, in last night's finale was effective as a step in his
>storyline with respect to his willingness to kill, to be sure, but
>being brainwashed by the Hunters beforehand only goes so far when it's
>rooted in his misplaced (self-)hatred of witches for the deaths of his
>parents. He should still have some sort of clear comeuppance and sense
>of penance inflicted on him. Perhaps by the ghost of that shopkeeper.

Eh. I didn't like Jake's newly discovered mission, and why the hell is
he walking around with a Mezuzah? It's a retcon.

Jake was the weakest character on the show, because they pretty much
wrote him into a corner from his introduction, so every time they
gave him something new emotionally, it felt like a retcon. I couldn't
suspend disbelief that the rest of the characters would ever trust him.

>>4. Adam's vulnerabilities will bring his dark side to the surface. As
>>Jake fights the darkness, Adam has, interestingly enough, invited it
>>in. When we first met Adam, he was the good guy. He always did the
>>right thing. "When push came to shove, and he went to rescue the two
>>huge loves of his life, Cassie and Diana, he was a useless piece of
>>shit to Blackwell's dark magic. It was like he was the skinny kid on
>>the beach getting sand kicked on him by the bullies, and he sends away
>>from the back of a comic book to be a muscle man so he can never be in
>>that position again. They thought that he was the best guy to take
>>care of the skull, but in fact, he was the worst. He was the most
>>emotionally vulnerable, the most fragile, and the most susceptible to
>>the seductive power of that skull."

>I just think that htey need to have another male character in the
>Circle to counterbalance Adam's too-seriousness. Jake's too old to
>work in that way as a peer. It would be interesting to see if the show
>could come up with a reason to bring someone who isn't from one of the
>Six Families into the circle just to a) define whether or not the
>Circle can and b) to get away from the whole "the circle is six"
>thing, which has never made numeric sense to when juxtaposed against
>the five of a Pentagram or the lucky number 7.

I suppose. It might have been an interesting development if he
turned naughty, while still rationalizing excessively.

>>5. Grant is genuinely a nice guy... but he's got some secrets. We love
>>Diana's sweet, rom-com love affair with the hot yacht guy, and though
>>Miller tells us that Grant won't suddenly be revealed to be an evil
>>witch, he is involved in some shady stuff. "I couldn't break Diana's
>>heart that much by turning him into a complete bad guy," he says.
>>"However, I can tell you that Grant works on a yacht for some guy who
>>seems to be coming in and out of Chance Harbor more than anybody with
>>a yacht should be coming in and out of Chance Harbor. Grant is
>>involved with more than he's letting on, and the people he's working
>>with are perhaps more interesting than you'd expect."

>My first thought: "So *that's* how the Hunters are sneaking into
>Chance Harbor!"

Hahahahahaha

For Diana's sake, I hope he's good in the sack. I'm not sure he was
going to be given all that much of a personality.

>>We've got more Season 2 scoop for you on the way... and of course, we
>>promise to update you immediately when we get word of whether there
>>will be a Season 2. Keep those fingers crossed!

>If the show gets a second season, I think they need to do a couple of
>things not already suggested above:

>1) They need to shift the focus of the show away from Cassie and onto
>Diana. Between Life Unexpected and this first season of Cicle, Britt
>Robertson has shown that, like Alexis Bledel on Gilmore Girls, she
>just doesn't have a lot of depth and has therefore failed to make the
>script's case that Cassie is both intelligent enough to lead the group
>and credulous enough to fail to ask Blackwell the type of questions
>that Diana was asking even before she found out that she was a Balcoin
>and even before Charles warned her to be skeptical.

I think Britt Robertson has more acting chops than you do. I really liked
her on Life Unexpected, and I thought she did something interesting with
those appalling scripts. She was the main reason to watch. The one who
gave a poor performance on that show was Shiri Appleby, whom I used to
think could act but it seems I'm terribly wrong about that.

I'd compare Cassie to Elena on VD, but much more naive. I think it must
be a common theme in L.J. Smith novels that teenage girls must never be
given power because they are stupid, and the powerful ones are extremely
dangerous.

Therefore, I must disagree. The script made no attempt to show that she
was more intelligent than the others. She got her way because Adam did
her bidding, and she mostly bullied Diana, and Melissa didn't even try.

>Conversely, Shelly Henning is a real find, able to play a lot of the
>colors of internal emotional conflict that Robertson hasn't been able
>to play as either Cassie or the much more complex Lux. She's played
>Diana's free-floating disappointment at no longer being the sole
>leader of the Circle with a deftness that has made her character
>immensely likeable because she's tempered Diana's disappointment with
>a sure-footed resilience. The writers also made a nifty course
>adjustment at midseason, having Diana confront what it means to be
>single again after breaking up with Adam that avoided some typical
>melodramatic pitfalls like acting out ala Marissa on The O.C. or just
>going completely whiny like Serena on Gossip Girl or falling
>completely apart like Jen on Dawson's Creek.

I'll agree partly, because I don't think Diana was tightly written.
Some early episodes, I bought that she was in love with Adam, but most
weeks, it seemed like the end of a relationship that had fallen apart,
which was not what the writers were supposed to be conveying all the
time. We never really saw them together as a strong couple when they
were supposed to be a strong couple.

>She's kinda beguiling like Joey Potter, so it would make more sense
>that since this is a younger show than Dawson's Creek was at the time
>that it fully embraced Joey as *the* central character (season 3,
>IMO), for this show to shift its focus from its Dawson (Cassie) to its
>Joey (Diana).

Joey was beguiling only because Dawson put her on a pedestal. It wasn't
thanks to Katie Holmes' performance but how she was reflected through
James Van Der Beek's eyes. Miss Holmes brought mostly adorable cheeks
and bright eyes and a lovable girl-next-door image, but she's in
desperate need of decent dialogue (a la Wonder Boys) and a strong male
to play off of to seem like she's creating any sort of character at all.

>Also, they've gotta change that damn theme song! The melody is fine,
>but the elementary-school-ish dah-dah vocal arrangement has *got* to
>go. It's so fucking annoying to hear at the start of the episode that
>I've got to believe that it single-handedly turned off viewers that it
>shouldn't have lost at the top of the season.

Hahahahahaha

The finale impressed me. I thought they'd built up to it nicely over
several episodes, and as a viewer, I was left satisfied that they
wrapped up major plot points without dragging them into next season.

It pleased me that Diana left town. Why do so many tv character lack
self preservation instincts? You're in constant danger. You get out of
constant danger by avoiding the source of danger, in this case, letting
Cassie make truly dumb decisions that lead to disastrous consequences
for you.

The major aspect of bad writing throughout the season was Charles Meade's
character, clearly the Cassie of his generation's circle. The writers
simply couldn't decide if he was tragic or evil. They started with
evil, with the murder of Cassie's mother, and then went to tragic,
with the necessary killing of Nick, but then it turned out that he
could have saved Nick since he removed four demons from Eben but
couldn't remove one from Nick?

Charles would have worked so much better as tragic and not evil. The
evil should have been Natasha Henstridge.

I liked Cassie with her grandmother. It was the only moment on the show
in which we saw the teenagers interacting with adults who are supposed to
be caring for them. Adam's father was useless, and most episodes, we
forgot that Faye was Dawn's daughter. Charles and Diana had a few nice
scenes together, but it wasn't enough. Melissa didn't ever interact
with a responsible adult that I recall, nor did Nick.

Really, the previous generation leaving a bunch of teenagers to discover
magic with no guidance whatsoever was beyond stupid, and I still have
no idea at all what Dawn's plan was to use their circle to regain power,
since she appeared to know nothing about creating a Crystal Skull. Also,
why did Dawn's own mother have to transfer her power to Dawn? Why the
hell couldn't she just act?

I really hated the script in which Charles gave Cassie's grandmother what
appeared to be a stroke that led to dementia. She got out of hospital,
which didn't make any sense considering she was still cursed. It became
impossible to believe that Cassie was left on her own. No, Balcoin wasn't
raising her.

I didn't quite buy Dawn in episodes in which she wasn't selfish.

I want to emphasize that my complaints are somewhat minor as the good
about this show so greatly exceeded the bad. For a modern day tv show
with story arc, the plotting was relatively tight and, again, major
story arcs from this season were wrapped up. The two performances from
the kids that we discussed were very strong, and that made up for a lot.

[Adam H. Kerman]

Jim G. <jimg...@geemail.com> wrote:
>Ian J. Ball sent the following on 5/11/2012 4:59 PM:

>>>5. Grant is genuinely a nice guy... but he's got some secrets. We love
>>>Diana's sweet, rom-com love affair with the hot yacht guy, and though
>>>Miller tells us that Grant won't suddenly be revealed to be an evil
>>>witch, he is involved in some shady stuff. "I couldn't break Diana's
>>>heart that much by turning him into a complete bad guy," he says.
>>>"However, I can tell you that Grant works on a yacht for some guy who
>>>seems to be coming in and out of Chance Harbor more than anybody with
>>>a yacht should be coming in and out of Chance Harbor. Grant is
>>>involved with more than he's letting on, and the people he's working
>>>with are perhaps more interesting than you'd expect."

>>I could live without this entire storyline, to be honest.

>Agreed. As I keep harping on, these are 16-year-old kids, so their story
>lines should have them cavorting about with other kids, not with guys
>old enough to be out of college already. That's just wrong on a whole
>lot of levels. And as I also said before, it would have been better to
>make the younger cast college-aged and plant 'em in Chance Harbor
>College, but that probably would have killed the show in CW's key
>tweener demographic...

Pre-teen girls who like to fantasize about teenagers who look 8 to 10 years
older than the characters they play?

[Ian J. Ball]

In article <jonnqs$g6s$1...@news.albasani.net>,

"Adam H. Kerman" <a...@chinet.com> wrote:

> Rob Jensen <Shut...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> s
> p
> o
> i
> l
> e
> r
>
> s
> p
> a
> c
> e
>
> >>http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2012/05/the-secret-circle-season-2-w
> >>hat-to-expect-if-the-show-gets-renewed.html
>
> >>'The Secret Circle' Season 2: What to expect if the show gets renewed
> >>By Carina Adly MacKenzie
>

> Really, the previous generation leaving a bunch of teenagers to discover
> magic with no guidance whatsoever was beyond stupid, and I still have
> no idea at all what Dawn's plan was to use their circle to regain power,
> since she appeared to know nothing about creating a Crystal Skull. Also,
> why did Dawn's own mother have to transfer her power to Dawn? Why the
> hell couldn't she just act?

Stephanie Kramer wasn't Dawn's mother - she was Charles' mother.

But, you're right - Dawn's and Charles' plans never made a lick of
sense. Or, at least, I don't think they did, as they never bothered to
let the audience in on *exactly* what their plans were!

> I want to emphasize that my complaints are somewhat minor as the good
> about this show so greatly exceeded the bad. For a modern day tv show
> with story arc, the plotting was relatively tight and, again, major
> story arcs from this season were wrapped up. The two performances from
> the kids that we discussed were very strong, and that made up for a lot.

I think all of the kids were strong, outside of Emo (Adam) and Jake's
bother Nick (which is no doubt why the producers unloaded Nick by
episode #7 and replaced him with Chris Zylka as Jake). In fact, Melissa
(Jessica Parker Kennedy) was the one person I consistently wished they
gave more to do. But all of the girls/women on the show were strong,
though I might actually agree with Rob that Britt Robertson was actually
the weakest among them.

[anim8rFSK]

In article
<ijball-NO_SPAM-B06...@news.eternal-september.org>,

Oh dear god - THAT'S who that was! I saw bits of her between scenes
with the snot ball at the lake, and couldn't place her. :(

--
So we're all agreed that Clod is as stupid as Charlie Sheen?

[Adam H. Kerman]

Ian J. Ball <ijball-...@mac.invalid> wrote:

Did we see Dawn's mother, or am I confused?

>But, you're right - Dawn's and Charles' plans never made a lick of
>sense. Or, at least, I don't think they did, as they never bothered to
>let the audience in on *exactly* what their plans were!

Sigh; next season.

>>I want to emphasize that my complaints are somewhat minor as the good
>>about this show so greatly exceeded the bad. For a modern day tv show
>>with story arc, the plotting was relatively tight and, again, major
>>story arcs from this season were wrapped up. The two performances from
>>the kids that we discussed were very strong, and that made up for a lot.

>I think all of the kids were strong, outside of Emo (Adam) and Jake's
>bother Nick (which is no doubt why the producers unloaded Nick by
>episode #7 and replaced him with Chris Zylka as Jake). In fact, Melissa
>(Jessica Parker Kennedy) was the one person I consistently wished they
>gave more to do. But all of the girls/women on the show were strong,
>though I might actually agree with Rob that Britt Robertson was actually
>the weakest among them.

I just think she was playing a deliberately limited character. If not for
the black magic, she would have been mostly ignored.

[Ian J. Ball]

In article <jopubv$kfp$1...@news.albasani.net>,

We have never seen Dawn's mother, as best I can recall.

[Rob Jensen]

On Mon, 14 May 2012 03:32:15 +0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman"

We never saw Dawn's mother. Kramer played Charles's mother. We *did,*
however, see Dawn's father-in-law, Faye's grandfather.

>>But, you're right - Dawn's and Charles' plans never made a lick of
>>sense. Or, at least, I don't think they did, as they never bothered to
>>let the audience in on *exactly* what their plans were!
>
>Sigh; next season.

Their plan was to get their powers back, period. Dawn always seemed to
me assume that Blackwell would come back and that was *a* motivating
factor in getting their powers back, but Dawn and Charles wanted to
get their powers back because they wanted their powers back.

>>>I want to emphasize that my complaints are somewhat minor as the good
>>>about this show so greatly exceeded the bad. For a modern day tv show
>>>with story arc, the plotting was relatively tight and, again, major
>>>story arcs from this season were wrapped up. The two performances from
>>>the kids that we discussed were very strong, and that made up for a lot.
>
>>I think all of the kids were strong, outside of Emo (Adam) and Jake's
>>bother Nick (which is no doubt why the producers unloaded Nick by
>>episode #7 and replaced him with Chris Zylka as Jake). In fact, Melissa
>>(Jessica Parker Kennedy) was the one person I consistently wished they
>>gave more to do. But all of the girls/women on the show were strong,
>>though I might actually agree with Rob that Britt Robertson was actually
>>the weakest among them.
>
>I just think she was playing a deliberately limited character. If not for
>the black magic, she would have been mostly ignored.

Well, that's the thing: IMO, Cassie was *not* a deliberately limited
character, she was the *central character,* the intended point-of-view
character. Although Faye and Diana more fulfilled the p-o-v function
in an ad hoc way because the writers screwed up. If they had intended
for Cassie to be a "limited character," they would have opened up the
series with Faye or Diana or whoever just starting an average day at
school and the episodes would have been written from primarily those
points of view and not from Cassie's. Moreover, we'd have found out
that Diana was a Balcoin by watching *her* get blocked from the mine
and Cassie's figuring it out would have occurred off-screen rather
than the other way around. It was Cassie that went out into the lake
to grab the Crystal Skull Snotball, not Diana. Heck, they didn't even
show Diana making an active choice to refuse to go in the lake, either
taking the lead or following Cassie, they just had her standing idly,
passively by, leaving Henning to add in a sense of hesitation or
trepidation. Hell, we even see *Jake's* memory of the ferry fire
through *Cassie's* eyes, we see Jake's reaction to seeing those
memories *through _Cassie's_ eyes.* *** Jake is a bystander not just
in the incident (which he was), he's a bystander in __ witnessing __
his own memories!*** Cassie's the one who is determing where they go
in his memories while he actively avoids them!

In terms of Joss Whedon's "What's the Buffy of this episode?" --
meaning what's the central metaphor of the episode as it pertains to
Buffy's heroic journey, the question has always been "What's the
Cassie of this episode?" I think that anything else is, to be blunt
about it, a misreading of the show.

But Robertson never clearly defined in her performance what she
thought that many of the scenes were about. Sure, she played simpler
emotions like terror (when Cassie was buried by Diana's grandmothe)
and rage (several times) fine, but when it came to more complex
issues, particularly anything about being sucked in by Blackwell, her
peformance made no sense. The amulet contained immense power that
Blackwell *stole* from other witches and it doesn't occur to Cassie to
be skeptical of Blackwell? I think that the scripts meant for her to
show momentary unspoken skepticism before tacking it down, but let's
be generous to Robertson for a moment and say that the scripts didn't
show these beats. It was still Robertson's responsibility to think
through the character and show the emotional journey to trusting
Blackwell, whether Cassie was allowing herself to be overwhelmed by
his charisma, seduced by the power he was offering or practically
anything else. If there was anything specified in the dialogue
regarding that journey toward trusting him despite every trustworthy
person she knew who knew Blackwell telling her not to trust him,
Robertson failed to play it. She did *nothing* with the character but
play the emotional destination of trusting rather than the journey
toward trusting, which is the acting equivalent of telling rather than
showing in the script. Thus, her's was the definition of a one-note
performance.

That said, it was one note that fit into the tone of the show. Diana
making the sane choice, given that the Circle was broken, of leaving
Chance Harbor, provided the show the opportunity to pivot to her as
the central character in a second season by opening with her returning
to the town at the end of summer, enabling us to learn about the town
and the Circle through a fresh set of eyes. It'd be a great choice for
the writers to make, to show that they accept that Robertson can't
handle the responsibility of carrying the show.

-- Rob

[Adam H. Kerman]

Rob Jensen <Shut...@aol.com> wrote:
>"Adam H. Kerman" <a...@chinet.com> wrote:
>>Ian J. Ball <ijball-...@mac.invalid> wrote:
>>>"Adam H. Kerman" <a...@chinet.com> wrote:
>>>>Rob Jensen <Shut...@aol.com> wrote:

>>>> s
>>>> p
>>>> o
>>>> i
>>>> l
>>>> e
>>>> r
>>>>
>>>> s
>>>> p
>>>> a
>>>> c
>>>> e

>>>>>>http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2012/05/the-secret-circle-season-2-what-to-expect-if-the-show-gets-renewed.html

>>>But, you're right - Dawn's and Charles' plans never made a lick of
>>>sense. Or, at least, I don't think they did, as they never bothered to
>>>let the audience in on *exactly* what their plans were!

>>Sigh; next season.

>Their plan was to get their powers back, period. Dawn always seemed to
>me assume that Blackwell would come back and that was *a* motivating
>factor in getting their powers back, but Dawn and Charles wanted to
>get their powers back because they wanted their powers back.

Getting their powers back was their desire. They never told us how
they planned to do it.

>>>>I want to emphasize that my complaints are somewhat minor as the good
>>>>about this show so greatly exceeded the bad. For a modern day tv show
>>>>with story arc, the plotting was relatively tight and, again, major
>>>>story arcs from this season were wrapped up. The two performances from
>>>>the kids that we discussed were very strong, and that made up for a lot.

>>>I think all of the kids were strong, outside of Emo (Adam) and Jake's
>>>bother Nick (which is no doubt why the producers unloaded Nick by
>>>episode #7 and replaced him with Chris Zylka as Jake). In fact, Melissa
>>>(Jessica Parker Kennedy) was the one person I consistently wished they
>>>gave more to do. But all of the girls/women on the show were strong,
>>>though I might actually agree with Rob that Britt Robertson was actually
>>>the weakest among them.

>>I just think she was playing a deliberately limited character. If not for
>>the black magic, she would have been mostly ignored.

>Well, that's the thing: IMO, Cassie was *not* a deliberately limited
>character, she was the *central character,* the intended point-of-view
>character.

Oh, I agree. She returned to Chance Harbor. She was the viewer's way of
getting into the story.

Nevertheless, it's illogical that the newcomer should have become the
circle's leader, particularly someone that naive, hence the dark magic.

The writers made on odd choice about her character traits.

>Although Faye and Diana more fulfilled the p-o-v function
>in an ad hoc way because the writers screwed up.

I think we're in complete agreement on this aspect.

>If they had intended for Cassie to be a "limited character," they would
>have opened up the series with Faye or Diana or whoever just starting
>an average day at school and the episodes would have been written from
>primarily those points of view and not from Cassie's. Moreover, we'd have
>found out that Diana was a Balcoin by watching *her* get blocked from the
>mine and Cassie's figuring it out would have occurred off-screen rather
>than the other way around. It was Cassie that went out into the lake to
>grab the Crystal Skull Snotball, not Diana. Heck, they didn't even show
>Diana making an active choice to refuse to go in the lake, either taking
>the lead or following Cassie, they just had her standing idly, passively
>by, leaving Henning to add in a sense of hesitation or trepidation. Hell,
>we even see *Jake's* memory of the ferry fire through *Cassie's* eyes, we
>see Jake's reaction to seeing those memories *through _Cassie's_ eyes.*
>*** Jake is a bystander not just in the incident (which he was), he's a
>bystander in __ witnessing __ his own memories!*** Cassie's the one who
>is determing where they go in his memories while he actively avoids them!

>In terms of Joss Whedon's "What's the Buffy of this episode?" --
>meaning what's the central metaphor of the episode as it pertains to
>Buffy's heroic journey, the question has always been "What's the
>Cassie of this episode?" I think that anything else is, to be blunt
>about it, a misreading of the show.

I'm sorry to disagree, but throughout first season, we saw Cassie's
heroics in a very limited fashion. Some weeks, Cassie rescued the others
from bad situations she created. We saw a girl make tons of mistakes and
refuse to take good advice and basically ignore the obvious.

>But Robertson never clearly defined in her performance what she
>thought that many of the scenes were about.

I won't say that her performance was more than it was, but the scripts
were less than you wanted them to be.

>Sure, she played simpler emotions like terror (when Cassie was buried
>by Diana's grandmothe) and rage (several times) fine, but when it came
>to more complex issues, particularly anything about being sucked in by
>Blackwell, her peformance made no sense.

You didn't see THAT as playing the way it was written? I did. After she
decided to trust Blackwell, she questioned nothing.

>The amulet contained immense power that Blackwell *stole* from other
>witches and it doesn't occur to Cassie to be skeptical of Blackwell? I
>think that the scripts meant for her to show momentary unspoken skepticism
>before tacking it down, but let's be generous to Robertson for a moment
>and say that the scripts didn't show these beats. It was still Robertson's
>responsibility to think through the character and show the emotional
>journey to trusting Blackwell, whether Cassie was allowing herself to
>be overwhelmed by his charisma, seduced by the power he was offering or
>practically anything else.

Yeah, well, a father-daughter seduction, while quite common in stories
like these, always creeps me out, as it's supposed to. I'm almost
relieved they didn't play it like that.

I didn't find Blackwell all that charismatic. Did you?

>If there was anything specified in the dialogue regarding that journey
>toward trusting him despite every trustworthy person she knew who knew
>Blackwell telling her not to trust him, Robertson failed to play it. She
>did *nothing* with the character but play the emotional destination of
>trusting rather than the journey toward trusting, which is the acting
>equivalent of telling rather than showing in the script. Thus, her's
>was the definition of a one-note performance.

I don't disagree at all. We're disagreeing on whether anything other
that "naive" was scripted.

>That said, it was one note that fit into the tone of the show. Diana
>making the sane choice, given that the Circle was broken, of leaving
>Chance Harbor, provided the show the opportunity to pivot to her as
>the central character in a second season by opening with her returning
>to the town at the end of summer, enabling us to learn about the town
>and the Circle through a fresh set of eyes. It'd be a great choice for
>the writers to make, to show that they accept that Robertson can't
>handle the responsibility of carrying the show.

Eh. All I think the producers saw was a group of actors little known
to US television viewers, with the exception of Britt Robertson, who'd
just come off a tv series. It's like they gave her character more of
a central role, without giving the character any depth, just because
the actress was better known than the others.

Do your comments also apply to Melissa, more underwritten than the
other three? Did the actor bring out more of the character than
her few lines suggested?

[Jim G.]

Adam H. Kerman sent the following on 5/13/2012 2:31 AM:

And who can enjoy all of the pluses of adult life (living alone in a
nice house, unlimited access to champagne and booze, sex anytime, no
homework, etc.) without any of the worries or responsibilities of the
adult parts of the equation.