What was I thinking?
This is Saved By The Bell with elves.
Leave aside the awful acting, the stupid haircuts, the lack of people or elves of color, the writing for this show is absolutely dumb. It's dull, mechanical, and totally devoid of character development. It's filled with clinches and flat characters and stereotypes. The language that characters share is just to move the plot along while we look at beautiful, young white people doing crazy beautiful, young white people things. The dialogue is wooden. It's commercial, training video narration. It's like watching the characters tell us a story instead of living one out for our viewing. There's no immersion, for all the beautiful people and beautiful costumes and beautiful scenery, there's simply nothing to it but boy-crazy girls and girl-crazy boys and does-he-like-me-check-this-box attitudes. It has all the depth and richness of a *beep* puddle.
I don't know what I was expecting, but it's not like MTV hasn't ever put out good entertainment. There have been shows that were good. Few and far between, but good shows. I suppose I thought this was going to be one since the books are so good. Ha! Books dumb. Fashion good. Teenage angst even better! Story bad. Plot bad. Thematic elements bad. Commercialism good! Eat pizza and buy Aeropostale and Abercrombie.
If you love narration and having everything explained to you ad nauseum and tight hairstyles and hot chicks and hot guys and old cranky dudes who aren't cool but strangely loved and respected, and you love rushing to the lunchroom to hear all the juicy gossip about Taylor and Justin and Dabney and Heidi and Mercedes (what were they thinking? I don't know but did you get a look at her shoes. omergerd!), then you'll cream yourself over this show. If you want something on par with Game of Thrones or any other reputably entertaining brand, then don't waste your time. Don't even spend 15 minutes to "give it a chance." This *beep* was *beep* when it was *beep* out by a corporate commercial committee. I hope they wrote Terry Brooks a huge *beep* check.