Hemlock Grove, Part 1

So my roommate and I were bored the other night and ended up slogging through two episodes of the travesty that is Netflix's second foray into original programming.

I feel like someone attempted to mash up Revenge and Teen Wolf and Grimm or something but failed to do it with any remote kind of competency. The series opens with a guy drinking in his front yard, and someone who's acting like a "precocious child" stereotype telling him that she's decided he's a werewolf.

Turns out, they're both in high school, and he is a werewolf. Also, he gets butt-naked, probably because of the werewolf thing.

In fact, lots of the characters are high schoolers. And much of the plot so far involves the high school.

There's a Victoria Grayson type character, who I guess isn't human. She seems to be having sex with everyone in town. She's got a high school age son, who is strangely pale-looking and apparently has a foot fetish. I guess he's supposed to be one half of this show's werewolf/human/vampire trio that's a staple of fantasy? She also has this daughter, who is hairless and supposedly has scars or something on one side of her face but I don't think that eye is even human. In any case, it's definitely not fitting with a human skull. Normally, this girl wears a wig worthy of Cousin It, and apparently bandages on her hands, and I guess her mom has everyone thinking she's severely mentally challenged or something. But, she types eloquent letters to her mom's brother, who from here on out I'll refer to as Uncle Fester.

Uncle Fester has a wife, and a daughter who's pregnant and completely and genuinely believes that an angel did it.

Also, werewolf boy is living with either his mom or his sister in what looks like a double-long version of a double-wide somewhere out in the forest. That set is the one thing I love about this show: The way that the lawn chairs are on the flat, empty space in front of the house, the years-old beer bottles in the dead leaves, bring up memories of the kinds of unfurnished "outdoor living space" kind of places all over the rural, working-class-to-poor areas where I spent my childhood.

The rest of it... for a show supposedly set in PA (or maybe OH, but either way, close enough) it's got believable scenery. At least they didn't film it in Griffith Park, or worst of all, Bronson Canyon. But there are other problems: The camera work is generally not impressive, and oh dear god, the lighting. There's a scene where they're outdoors, in a field, on a partially cloudy day. Now, the light there will be generally sunshiny, although not as intense as LA - maybe white with a slight greyish tint on a cloudy day, and a slightly warm white on a sunny day. But, the lighting on the characters and props make it look like they're standing under one of those giant yellow-and-white striped tents that you see pop up at county fairs and large church parties.

And the writing. Where do I get started with the writing? For that matter, where did anyone get started with that writing? I feel like each writer was given a different character's plot line, and then at the end they each swapped papers with another writer in an attempt to "edit" and give it some sense of continuity, and then declared it ready to be filmed.

Apparently, this series had a $45 million budget. I'm trying to figure out what they spent it all on: My current best guess is the funds that were required to haul an entire film set off to the middle-of-nowhere kinds of locations where they filmed.