Glory Days

This show was truly an accomplishment for the WB, giving a nice break from their sap-dripping teen shows that only Gilmore Girls and Smallville have seemed to accomplish otherwise. The dry humor was wonderful and refreshing, and the romantic tension between Mike and Ellie was fun and edgy, avoiding what many other shows do not - jumping into it too fast, leaving no room for anticipation or appropriate development. Also, the weekly obstacles created not only something to look forward to, but something that truly held one's interest for the entire hour. The characters were great in each aspect, often going outside the lines while not being outrageous, just delightfully quirky. Unfortunately, as the WB often does, this show was canceled due to "poor ratings" in nearly impossible and illogical timeslots, being a midseason replacement for the popular Angel and jumping between airing after 7th Heaven and Dawson's Creek, who's audiences would not likely be interested in this show, of a very different genre, in that place. Well, we can always hope for a video release.

I have seen alot of tv shows, teen shows imparticular. Which I am sure this show will be classified among most adults. I am a teen, so naturally this show was one I really liked. But my parents both sat down and watched it with me, and both liked it. I thought it was great, the acting, the atmosphere, it was awesome. I liked the fact that it was suspenseful, a bit scarry, and had comedy in it as well. So I say: This show rocks, and I hope others feel the same way!

I was excited to hear that the WB was airing this new, creative series created by Kevin Williamson, and I have seen the majority of the episodes and I am absolutely hooked on this show, it's incredible! The setting is a small island town called Glory and the main character is a writer named Mike who along with the town sheriff, Rudy, and the medical examiner, Ellie, attempts to solve eerie mysteries dealing with murders, kidnappings, supernatural occurrences and other strange events which plague the town. This show is scary, fun and I really like the characters because there is always something interesting going on between them. I am hoping this show gets picked up again because only about 10 episodes have aired, as some sort of mid-season replacement I guess, and I have not heard whether or not it is being picked up again. Hopefully it will be, this is a promising new show that is very enjoyable and fun to watch every week, I know I always look forward to new episodes.

After a moderately successful novel, Mike returns to the small town he grew up in only to find that the locals are unhappy with him using them as the "inspiration" for said book. He joins the newspaper there, and stays around... you know, I'm not entirely certain why. Because this did manage more than one 40-ish minute episode, I suppose? Yes, a whopping nine total, and seven of them were released on DVD(together with with three trailers, one for this, the other two for Asian Vision and Shaun of the Dead) edited into three feature-length combos(in an utterly random order, leading to something being solved early on, only to suddenly be an issue later) under the titles of DemonTown I, II and III. The relative lack of continuity actually makes them run awkwardly together... more than once, I mistook the opening sequence of one bit for part of the ending of the previous one. Anyway, the young male journalist of course has a penchant for figuring things out, and he aids the sheriff(his child-hood friend) Rudy and the coroner/obvious love interest Ellie(pre-Without A Trace Poppy Montgomery) in determining the truth behind the seemingly supernatural murders and abductions. They encounter vampires, decapitating clowns(!), possession by the devil and The Silence of The Lambs(hey, they make that reference, as well). The conflict is too often soap-opera-ish, the mystery comes off as Scooby-Doo level(albeit they do keep you guessing(after a while, it gets annoying with all the red herrings), and mostly holds up, if one or two explanations don't make sense), and the quirky characters just aren't that compelling(not to mention that they seem to change drastically on occasion, when the writers got a new idea; they are easily forgotten about). The acting is fine. This can be funny, but it tends to have a goofy tone, and it's pretty paint-by-numbers. I'd say this could have been better, it had potential, it simply didn't get around to realizing it. Would it have, had it gotten more time to try? Meh. Maybe. I don't think the viewers would have stuck around to find out(as a matter of fact, I suppose that is exactly what did happen... too many of us gave up on it, understandably enough). The dialog can be clever. I enjoyed seeing Emily VanCamp of Everwood(evidently she likes being the charming hottie in a little, forgotten village) fame. The production values are decent. Kevin Williamson swung and missed, with this one(maybe he got too much credit from us for Scream). This can be tense and scary, if ultimately it feels unsatisfying and doesn't leave any kind of lasting impression on you. If you ask me what this was in a few weeks, it may take me a while to recall. There is some bloody, gory, violent and disturbing content in this. I recommend this to fans of crime-dramedy, who the "lightness" of this appeals to. 6/10

The young writer and prodigal son Mike Dolan (Eddie Cahil) returns home, after writing a successful book, where he used real events with his relatives and closest friends as if they were fictional characters. While traveling in a ferry, he is the unique person to see a man being pushed overboard. The office in charge of the investigation is Sheriff Rudy Dunlop (Jay R. Ferguson), a former friend and hurt with the comments of Mike's book. The coroner Ellie (Poppy Montgomery) finds fingerprints in the dead body indicating that Mike's observations were correct. After resolving this crime, a slaughterer clown kills and decapitates his victims. And finally, in a competition about the best seaman of the island, persons are being drowned on earth. Yesterday I saw this VHS, released by 'Warner do Brasil' with the compilation of three episodes of this unreleased series (in Brazil) and I liked. The unique known actress (for me) is Theresa Russell, but the young cast works very well, there are good sarcastic lines and the stories are very engaging. My complaint is against the disgusting procedure of 'Warner do Brasil', which released a VHS with a cover and a title ('Demon Town: The City of the Demon') inducing the viewers that 'Glory Days' would be a horror movie. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): 'Demon Town: A Cidade do Demônio' ('Demon Town: The City of the Demon')