Red Widow

A nice based-on series with good acting, well-flowing development, beautiful photography and a good score. It is not on par with the original NL multi-season show, but well-done nevertheless and I would have liked very much a second season.

The cliffhanger deserved that much!

Marta Walraven (Radha Mitchell) comes from a crime family, and when her husband is gunned down, she finds herself entangled by his underworld business. Crime boss Nicholae Schiller (Goran Visnjic) blames her husband for stealing his drugs, and forces her to work for him. It turns out that her brother Irwin Petrov (Wil Traval) was actually the one who stole the drugs.

All the underworld crime drama isn't anything new. But in order to get involved, there has to be some rooting interest. The fact is there is nobody likable. Every character is problematic, even the kids. The girl is clueless. The boy is annoyingly idiotic. The family is completely dysfunctional. So who cares what happens to these people. Certainly not me.

If this great cast of actors can't make Red Widow work, then they weren't given much to work with. I watched every episode, and aside from the fact that it's just not believable that the intelligent, involved, loving Marta would not know more about the source of her family's income - it's also not believable that she emerged from her horrific childhood as this confident, balanced, ordinary soccer mom...not to mention her sweet sister. The brother was believable as an egomaniac twisted with anger and a need to prove himself to be the top dog, and make his father proud. Schiller's character never did anything bad, but we were supposed to be afraid...very afraid. After the 3rd episode I only watched the show to see how on earth the actors were going to make the plot twists seem believable because the writing was terrible. With the excellent cast, this show had a chance, but even this cast of great actors couldn't sell this limp biscuit.

The series has some intriguing possibilities. The core cast of Radha Mitchell and Goran Visnjic is very solid - and Radha's (Marta's) family also has a range of better possibilities. The sleeper in this series might be Luke Goss' character, Luther. At this point, he is underused.

At present, the writers have too many illogical sub plots that allow potentially good characters to dangle. A good example of a misused character is Colin's portrayal of James Ramos. Even though the plot wanders, the acting is good. It's also refreshing to see some new talented faces rather than simply recycled actors.

If the writers would tighten up both the plot and characters, Red Widow has the potential to be a real winner.

As an aside, I think this franchise would have a much better chance on CBS rather than ABC. CBS manages its drama franchises much better, including time slotting and lead-ins. Red Widow could be a great fit with this network's lineup. However, with more focused writing, Red Widow might help ABC find its way back to prime time ratings success.

Can Marta successfully transform herself from soccer-mom suburban housewife to big-league drug smuggler? She's quite delicious, and convincing, too, as she struggles with her new, and very much unwanted, role. She fumbles and stumbles, and we agonize over her struggle, rooting for this very nice young mother to succeed in the world of tough drug smuggling. Talk about being out of one's depth! But she is, after all, the daughter of a Russian mobster, so evidently she's got the genes for the job. "Marta, you've changed," her father says, impressed with her new toughness. Indeed! And we get to root for her to be successful in a serious criminal activity. I have to wonder how the writers will resolve the dilemma of allowing a criminal action to succeed, while not offering any approval of heroin smuggling.

Or will she succeed? If she does not, how will she keep her family safe? Who shot her husband dead? Who took the 75 kilos of heroin that had been stashed in her boat? Man, am I hooked on this show.

It helps that Radha Mitchell is intensely desirable. If there's a serious flaw in the plot, it's the way Bob shrugs off her advances, as she tries to befriend him, planning to bribe him to be a partner in the crime. It's hard enough to believe that Marta could enjoy a luxurious life in an expensive Marin County home while never noticing that her husband's rental-fishboat profession cannot possibly support such a rich lifestyle. It's much harder to believe that any man with normal hormones could blithely brush off the advances of such a woman, slender, sexy, and clearly interested in him. That just does not compute.

Marta is the heart of the show, and manages to be credible at both soccer-momhood, and wannabe-drug smuggler. One moment she's laughing with ice cream and her children – and then the phone rings, and she's back in the drug-smuggling world, and utterly terrified. That's what makes the show work. We love her, and we really want her to succeed in this awful Russian-mobster role. I can't wait until Sunday, and the next episode.