TV REVIEW: BATES MOTEL - SEASON 1 REVIEW

Note: I apologize to any regular readers (if I have those, please comment and let me know!) who were reading my episode-specific reviews and wondered what happened. My real-life job has been taking it's toll on me, but now that I've temporarily rejoined the ranks of the unemployed, I have much more time for blog posts! Instead of covering the last two episodes in separate posts, I figured I'd condense them into this general overview of the first season.

Man, what a weird show.

And not weird in the Twin Peaks "what's going on?" way. More like this show came from some Bizarro universe where people had iPhones in the 1950's, everyone spoke in the cheesiest way possible, and having ten or so characters (each with their own side-plots) is seen as a good idea.

I've come to accept that Bates Motel is not a Psycho show. It's this Bizarro universe soap opera that happens to have some characters from the Psycho universe in it. That's probably the biggest detriment to my interest in the show, since I was really looking forward to an in-depth probe into the mind of Norman Bates and a look at the domineering figure of his mother. While the show flirts with that here and there, you can tell that's not what the creators are interested in. They spend way more time on all the mysterious goings-on that envelope the town Norman and his mother have moved to. The Bates clan just happen to be pawns in that game.

The show started off quite well, but by the end of the season, it has devolved into this wacky composite that feels completely unfocused. There are cadres of characters that are either inconsequential or downright annoying. It doesn't help that absolutely no one is giving a performance worth serious discussion. If at least one of the cast members was shining, it'd help elevate the show a bit. Alas, everyone is slumming it.

But then there's that Bizarro quality about the show that actually makes it watchable. The way people deliver lines like, "I killed my dog!" come off as unintentionally humorous. I'm not arguing that Bates Motel falls into the much-coveted arena of "so bad it's good" fare like Troll 2 and Plan 9 from Outer Space, but it's bad quality does have this spark of oddness to it that keeps you watching. I wish this were some other show besides a Psycho prequel because I think I'd like it a whole lot more.

The show is plagued by hackneyed writing and extraneous plots, but the way that those are executed with such earnest make the show strangely involving. It's not so much like watching a trainwreck as it is watching fundamentalist Christian children speaking in tongues: you know it's crazy and wrong but because they are committed to it, it actually draws you in.

By the end of the season, the big overarching plot (which has nothing to do with the relationship between Norma Bates and her son) seems to have been settled in a pretty unspectacular way. While I'm not hopeful for season two, there is an element of morbid curiosity that plagues me. There's also a chance that things could start to get focused more on the two main characters, but with worthless characters like Dylan and his crime doings around, I can't hold my breath.

At this point, the show has lowered my expectations of it greatly, and maybe that works in its favor, but it is disappointing since the idea of a Psycho prequel show does have a lot of promise. I guess I'll just have to accept this show from whatever dimension it jumped out of and see if it can top itself with its own brand of sincere wackiness. It'll be hard to beat Norma's cry of, "I murdered the crap out of him!" and Norman yelling about not having any black socks.

TV REVIEW: BATES MOTEL - SEASON 1 EPISODE 8 - "A Boy and His Dog"

Why does Bates Motel have to tease me with little bits of goodness? The opening bit with Norman and his quasi-girlfriend's taxidermist father is wonderful, and perfect Psycho prequel stuff. Why? Because it lets us into what makes Norman tick, and even accentuates some positive aspects of his character. Guess what the rest of the episode is filled with? Same old side-plots and silly soulless "tension." Is the season over yet so I can stop reviewing it?

Dylan does some homoerotic bonding with his partner-in-crime in a good old-fashioned barfight. He also shows he has the guts to be a criminal head honcho by kicking a hippie out of a van. RIVETING!

The bypass storyline that hasn't been mentioned since the pilot gets a brief shoutout when Norma asks Sheriff Eyeliner for a political favor, and he promptly shuts her down. ENTHRALLING!

Emma tells some girls that Bradley slept with Norman, since they were dissing him and she's all protective of her boy(friend?). This upsets Bradley, which upsets Norman, who gets upset at Emma and then they make up next to Norman's stuffed dog. HAIR-RAISING!

Norman's teacher suggest he sees a therapist, and Norma agrees but sits through the session with him. Afterwards, the shrink tells Norma she may be a little controlling, which turns on Norma's incredulous anger mode. SPINE-TINGLING!

The Man in Number 9 does some mystery stuff and Norma follows him around. They dryly banter back and forth, and Norma kicks him out of the motel. He responds by digging up Deputy Shelby's autopsied corpse and putting it in her bedroom. ...Hey, that was actually kind of fun! Goddamn it, Bates Motel. Can't you just commit to this kind of kookiness weekly? With only two episodes left, I'm hoping we get a heap of corpses coming our way. If Norman can start doing his Psycho thing, maybe the show is savable. That's a big maybe. I leave you with my Freddie Highmore Face of the Week.

TV REVIEW: BATES MOTEL - SEASON 1 EPISODE 7 - "The Man in Number 9"

Another week of Bates Motel, another week where I feel like calling up Gus Van Sant and letting him know he's not the worst thing that ever happened to the Psycho franchise.

To start things off, Dylan proves his continuing horribleness in the pre-credits scene by getting all haughty with Sheriff Richard Alpert. Why is he feeling so perturbed? Because he and his family are getting away with murdering a both Keith Sommers and a deputy and he's not getting any credit for it. I really hope he falls down a bottomless pit that's mysteriously located in the woods next to that marijuana field that obviously didn't matter. Maybe it leads to the overpass that Norma mentioned in the pilot, you know? The one that would affect her hotel's livelihood? The one that hasn't been mentioned for the entire season?

This is another classic Bates Motel episode where things do progress, but it doesn't feel like it at all. Norma finds out about Norman's tryst with Bradley, and gets...jealous? Protective? It's hard to figure out exactly what her response to this knowledge is, but that's probably because the writers don't understand their characters at all (there's a big rant at the end of this article all about that). Norman is all head-over-heels for Bradley, oblivious to the fact that he was a grief bang and nothing more. The only bright spot in this episode is near the end, when Norman goes to profess his love to Bradley and she shuts him down. He walks away and starts talking to himself, repeating the words his mother said about Bradley verbatim. This is one of the first real bits of familiar mythology the show has given us, and while it's not worth exalting, it is nice to see something resembling the Psycho characters we know. I wonder if the show will ever go the distance and have Norman speak in his mother's voice. Maybe he takes up ventriloquism? I won't hold my breathe.

As far as the titular Man in Number 9 goes, it's classic Lost mystery-baiting at its worst. Oooooooo, he's got lots of money but we don't know why! Stay tuned for more secrets. The show has an over-abundance of this kind of stuff, and I guarantee that whatever Nine-Man is involved with, it'll be thoroughly underwhelming. As boring as things have been, he better be part of a monster brigade that meet every two months to sacrifice virgins to the blood god Mammon. Or he's a government agent that meets up with aliens in the hopes of developing a serum that turns people into pure energy beings. That's the kind of batshit insanity the show needs at this point.

This episode does have one thing worth extolling, and it comes from the one area Bates Motel is spectacular at: unintentional comedy. Norman befriends a stray dog that slowly begins to trust him. When he returns from his "breakup" with Bradley, he sees the dog standing across the road and asks it to come to him. Well, what do you think happens? A car passes by and roadkills the poor mutt instantly. This leads to Norman cradling the canine corpse and sobbing, "I killed my dog!" Comedy. Gold.

And that's pretty much it for this episode. Another slog through various plotlines, all ending up as uneventful and uninteresting as the last batch, and just setting up even more threadbare plots. What follows below is a (probably incoherent) rant about the show that has been bugging me since last week's episode. The review is over, but the raving starts...now.

Last week, it was revealed that Norman actually killed his father and had no memory of it. Norma then reveals to Dylan that she has been "protecting" Norman from himself and the knowledge of what he did. When I first saw this (as I noted in last week's column), I really enjoyed it. It was a decent enough twist and it got the story back around to the character we came to see. But, over the course of the week, I started reevaluating what it actually meant, and I came to this conclusion: the writers/showrunners have absolutely no idea (or just don't care) what the characters of Norman and Norma Bates were about. Now, you can argue that since this is a reimagining (or whatever term you wish to apply) that these aren't the same characters as the ones introduced in Robert Bloch's novel, or more directly Hitchcock's film. That's fair, but there are fundamental things about those characters that make up the core mechanics of who they are. The big reveal that Norman actually killed his father and has always been crazy completely undermines what Psycho is about: an innocent boy driven completely insane by his domineering mother.

Hitchcock's Norman Bates was the poster child for nurture over nature. Norman Bates was a nice guy (except for being a perv), and would have remained that way if not for his dementedly overbearing mother. Bates Motel's Norman is troubled from the outset, and his mother (while not completely rational) is forced to try and protect him from himself. Now, this could all get rectified if they show flashbacks of Norma with Norman as a child, conditioning him and imposing a psychological control over him early on. They could end up (in a boringly roundabout way) still blaming Norma for the madman Norman becomes, but as far as we've seen, that's not the case. This Norman is the very opposite of Hitchcock's: his nature dooms him to evil. That makes Norma a fairly useless character. She is supposed to be the force that shapes an otherwise normal boy into a cross-dressing murderer. This show is positing that Norman was always going to be unhinged, and now his surroundings are simply bringing that part of him out. It not only makes the character predictable, but it takes away a crucial component of Norman Bates: pity.

In Psycho II, Norman is released from the mental institution and reenters society. All the while, he's afraid of "Mother" coming back, and the audience feels sorry for him. It's not his fault that he is the way he is, and we actually want Norman to stay sane and beat the curse his mother put on him. It's impossible to feel sorry for Bates Motel's Norman because it's not his mother's fault he is the way he is. He's crazy from the get-go, so why should I feel bad for him? This makes me feel like the show's creators had no idea what made these characters so morbidly enticing in the first place. I hope they do some retconning in order to course correct, but it'll still feel roundabout and lazy. They should have had a better grasp on the characters from the beginning. AND THEY DID! The first two episodes positioned Norma as a conniving manipulator, and even acknowledged the incestuous chemistry between Norman and his mother. At this point in the series, all that has taken a backseat to soap opera plots and mystery boxes filled with nothing but hot air. I'm committed to reviewing the entire first season for this blog (and will do so as objectively as I can), but it'll take time-traveling cyborg werewolves kidnapping Norma to get me invested into a second season. No matter what happens from here on out, I have to declare Bates Motel deader than Marion Crane.

TV REVIEW: BATES MOTEL - SEASON 1 EPISODE 6 - "The Truth"

I think I may have discovered how to endure the rest of Bates Motel's inaugural season: viewing it as a comedy that's completely aware of its own absurdity. For the majority of this episode's running time, I was outright guffawing. Right from the opening scene, when Norma breaks into a jaunty little sprint, I couldn't help but find it funny. Everyone's facial expressions, lines and delivery all just seemed to tickle my funnybone this week. At this point, it's a welcome change from the casual disinterest the last few episodes have left me with.

And things actually happen in this episode! Deputy No-One-Cares-About is dispatched of, and in a pretty enjoyable (but not in the least bit suspenseful) gunfight inside the Bates house. There is still some horrible writing stupidity going on (Deputy Sexfiend runs after the Asian girl Norma was holing up in the motel, and right after that, Dylan, Norman and Norma proceed to have a conversation about Norman living with Dylan! WHILE THERE'S A SEX MURDER GUY IN THEIR IMMEDIATE VICINITY) and we get more development on Dylan's life of crime storyline (oh joy...), but for the most part, this is one of the more fun episodes of the season so far. That's mostly due to the fact that this episode has some momentum to it, and things actually get resolved. Well, as much as Bates Motel can resolve things. Events are written (like the trashy soap opera the show is) so that they can be ends to plot-lines, but also could be left open in case of a lack of ideas in the writers' room. Keith Sommers' belt? Could be gone for good, or could come back. Deputy Dumbo? He's offed, and we may deal with one episode of fallout, but he could easily be swept under the rug. Or they could stretch out his death's investigation for at least two or three more episodes. Considering how many plot branches the show has, I'm hoping these are definitely getting lopped off.

The most shocking thing about the whole episode is easily the ending, which is actually good. It almost starts to course-correct the fact that this is a show based on Psycho, and hopefully the writers stay on that track. We get the motel's first guest next week, so maybe things will start to fall into a better groove. I'm sure we'll still have to deal with uninteresting sub-plots (Dylan's hoodlum hijinks and Norman's high-school drama), but if the main thrust of the story can stay with what's revealed in the ending, things may be looking a tad bit up for Bates Motel. I won't hold my breath, but I will cross(dress) my fingers.

TV REVIEW: BATES MOTEL - SEASON 1 EPISODE 5 - "Ocean View"

After last week's dismally disappointing excuse for an episode, I had hoped that Norma's arrest would help bring some focus to this week. I need to stop hoping when it comes to Bates Motel and just expect at least three or four plots an episode, laughably unrealistic dialogue (practically every scene between Norman and Emma is unintentional comedy gold) and characters ripped out of The Young and the Restless. I thought I could deal with the soapy melodrama and fluctuating character motivation, but after these last two episodes I'm ready to check out.

And for the second week in a row, even though things technically do progress, why does it feel like nothing happens? The only exciting bits come from Dylan's storyline, and they are so random and ridiculous that it's impossible to feel any dramatic impact from them at all. Why should I be shocked or concerned that some skeevy guy (who we've never even seen or heard of before!) shoots Dylan's partner-in-crime randomly? What does it matter that Dylan finds him and runs him over? Sure, on a purely visceral level it is entertaining, but there's no compelling narrative behind those actions that make them enjoyable. Maybe if Dylan was a more likable and provocative character, things would be better. But, he's not and neither is his relationship with his "Someone just gave me a new throat hole" buddy. At least we got to see some blood this week. Remember what movie this show is based off of? Me neither.

Also, I'm officially over iPhone text message screens in this show. Not only are they tiny and tough to read (that might just be my eyes' stupid fault) but they are so frequent that they become a lazy form of character interaction. It is incredibly difficult to make a text message dramatic, and this show isn't proving to be the exception to that statement.

I also can't believe how quickly (and stupidly) Norma's arrest is swept under the plot rug. Norma was the one character that really hooked me in when the season started, and now she's one of the reasons I want to tune out. Her screaming and childish behavior is just silly now, and any hints at her being a Machiavellian schemer have been thrown out the window in favor of her playing second fiddle to her deputy boyfriend. And looks like next week will just be a whole episode of her in denial about said boyfriend's serial killing tendencies. Greeeaaat.

The only way Bates Motel can possibly save itself is if all its plotlines get resolved by season's end and the show turns into what it's supposed to be: two crazy people running a motel. Get a focus on your main characters and let us see what makes their cuckoo clocks tick. No one cares about Bradley and if she updated her relationship status on Facebook (that line made me pause for an actual facepalm) or about drop dead gorgeous Deputy Sexfiend. The show is called Bates Motel. "Bates" should be the operative word.

TV REVIEW: BATES MOTEL - SEASON 1 EPISODE 4 - "Trust Me"

If it wasn't for the fact that I have committed myself to reviewing the entire first season of Bates Motel, this episode would have been the drop off point. Even though things "happen" throughout the course of the episode, it's all presented in such a bland and mechanical way that it feels like nothing really has progressed.

The only real event worth mentioning is the ending, where Norma is arrested for the murder of Keith Sommers, the rapist from the first episode. I'm sure she'll be out of shackles by the next episode's end, so that drama just comes off flat. I did love the sudden switch to slow-motion when the police come to arrest her. Vera Farmiga also gets two really unintentionally funny lines this episode ("I killed the crap out of him!" and "Putting up with my ass?") that saved me from total boredom.

Ugh, what else? Norman has sex with a grieving Bradley. Nothing really interesting there, except to fuel the high school drama plotline once Anna comes out of her episode hibernation cave. I'm so excited for those scenes.

I can't even muster up much else about this episode. Did the show forget it was a Psycho prequel and drift off onto the Lifetime Channel? When other networks are showing how to do a horror prequel right, it really makes Bates Motel look even worse. Any interesting and risque ideas that were being floated around seem to be drowned in the soap opera shenanigans this episode strictly focuses on. I kind of want the show to go completely bonkers and have alternate universes where a black and white Norman Bates appears and starts slapping everyone silly. I hope next week is better, or else alcohol may start factoring into my viewings.

TV REVIEW: BATES MOTEL - SEASON 1 EPISODE 3 - "What's Wrong With Norman"

Last week, I had accepted the defeated position that Bates Motel was not going to be the show I wanted it to be. Instead, I decided to embrace the soapy and overwrought nature of the material as best as I could. With just the third episode, Bates Motel is trying my patience even in the realms of trashy pulp nonsense (until the ending, which we'll get to).

Just as I had feared, Dylan's adventures in rural Crimetown are the worst kind of filler: they advance practically nothing of the plot and service no one but him. And surprise, he's still not interesting in the least. Even his little attempt to bond with Norman comes off as forced. I can't believe it's only taken two episodes for me to be completely over a character. Unless things take a drastic and heavily dramatic turn for him, I will easily crown Dylan the worst aspect of this series.

Even Vera Farmiga feels tired in this episode. Her usual sly looks and dark demeanor are almost nonexistent this week. When your show's secret weapon is faltering, the whole ship is in danger of sinking.

I don't know if it's just me, but I find it really hard to like any of the secondary cast in this show. Norman's two love interests are such stereotypes that they feel plucked from some MTV teen drama. Both Bradley and Emma are given goofy lines and are such one-note characters that there's only one way they'll become interesting: if they are murdered by Norman.

And now we get to the one part of this episode that (while not completely a triumph) is at least intriguing and somewhat compelling: Norman. His obsession with his Chinese murder book causes him to faint in class, whilst having visions of his teacher bound with rope. Now we're in some Psycho territory! He's admitted to the hospital and during this time, the local sheriff obtains a search warrant (somehow for some reason. Who cares? DRAMA!) for the Bates house. This is when Norman has to divulge to his mother that he kept the belt from the body they disposed. Fearing that the police have found it, Norma meets up with Deputy Do Good in an effort to squeeze some info out of him, and finds out that Officer Nice Guy hid the belt from the police in order to protect Norma. By now, Norman has returned home from the hospital (thanks to Norma forcibly checking him out) and is anxiously waiting for his mother to come home. Dylan tries to give Norman some advice but doesn't manage to connect with his half-brother.

Then, one little exchange plants the seeds of an entire season's worth of plotting: Dylan apologizes for fighting with Norman and for Norman almost killing him with a meat tenderizer. What does Norman say? He doesn't remember that. We now cannot trust anything that happens from Norman's point of view (although we actually can, much to the writer's chagrin. More on that in just a sec), and that is compounded even more near the end of the episode when the truly big "reveal" happens: Norman hallucinates his mother telling him that he has to go and retrieve the belt.

This one scene gives me extremely mixed feelings. Noticed that I say mixed, not definitively bad or good. On the one hand, this is exactly the kind of material I wanted from the show: the discovery and revelation of Norman Bates as a serial killer that is "powered" by his (eventually dead) mother's influence. And the scene between them is the best Freddie Highmore has done at being creepy so far. However, while this makes Norman more interesting as a character, the side effect is that it has the potential to demystify and actually soften Norma as the domineering figure we've known her to be. Is it really Norma who drives her son to become the monster he is destined to be, or is it actually Norman's perception of his mother? The performance Vera Farmiga gives as the vision Norman sees is exactly the Norma Bates we came to be familiar with through the original film. So will the real Norma actually end up being more sympathetic? That seems like a missed opportunity at showing us one of the greatest unseen villains in cinema history. But, Norma has been shown to be the manipulative and controlling figure we expect in the very first episode. I'm very excited at seeing Norman start to spiral into his eventual insanity, but if it comes at the cost of his actual mother's wickedness...I don't know if that's the best trade-off.

Anyway, Norman goes to the cop's house and looks for the belt, only to find that the guy has a porn dungeon in his basement and...a Chinese girl? Wow! They've already given us the answer to that plotline? Fantastic and honestly surprising! I'm very pleased that we weren't going to drag out all season with the mystery of Injector Man, but guess what? Now that Norman is "seeing things", we're going to get a whole episode that discredits his discovery when we all know it's the truth. Ugh. Just when you've given me hope, Bates Motel, you make me dread your next move.

Even with all of its meandering blandness, I still feel this is a good show going through its birthing pains. When the show keeps Norman and his mother at the forefront, things at least have some momentum. And when you give particular focus to one of them (in this case Norman), there is some real meat to digest, even if some of it may not be fully cooked (Can you tell I'm anxious for that other horror prequel show starting tomorrow?). Bates Motel, stop flopping around town and just be the show your title promises: A show about the crazy family Bates (Dylan excluded, please). You'll be much more fun to watch.

TV REVIEW: BATES MOTEL - SEASON 1 EPISODE 2 - "Nice Town You Picked, Norma..."

I've resigned myself to the fact that Bates Motel is not going to be the show I expected it to be. Instead of a serious examination of what turns an innocent child into a monster, this is a soap opera through and through. That's not necessarily a bad thing (we'll get to some of the glee-inducing trashiness later), but it would be easier to swallow if there weren't tiny hints of something really smart and seductive popping up here and there. All of that has to do with Norma and Norman's relationship (the reason any Psycho fan has tuned in), and it's a shame the show's creators seem more interested in every other possible plotline they've come up with. With this episode, Bates Motel has said that the titular location isn't going to be what drives the stories, but rather the town Norma and her son have moved to. While that can provide plenty of wacky and nasty diversions, it doesn't feel very original. A town with a secret (or in this case what seems to be HUNDREDS of secrets) is an old plot device, while the concept of using the motel to wheel in various mysteries and characters seemed fresh. I'm sure that will still end up happening, but with the current setup in place, it'll only over-complicate a show that's already weighing itself down with too much.

I don't want to sound like I'm completely down on the show, so let's look at what's really good about this episode. Like I said before, anything where just Norma and Norman are together is great. The highlight is easily the comfortably disturbing scene where Norma changes in front of her son and assures him that her "date" with the local deputy is nothing more than a strategic maneuver, helping to keep the cops from discovering the body they recently disposed of. The little looks they give each other, the casual demeanor about familial sexuality, and the devotion bordering on control are all perfectly executed in this one little scene. I also love seeing the two of them scrubbing the kitchen clean, looking completely innocent while covering up a dastardly deed. If the show focused on more moments like these, it'd be more like the show I signed up for.

The other fun bit comes at the end, when we get to see what "justice" looks like in the town of White Pine Bay. I'll never bemoan seeing a flaming corpse on television, and this one is a nice bit of spectacle. Crazy little things like this are what the show is going to need to keep it afloat amidst its sea of subplots.

Now, let's get into some of these subplots. Obviously, the biggest one is the addition of big brother (well, stepbrother) Dylan. While I really dig the idea of Norma having a son that she feels practically nothing for (and him feeling the same way), I wish I could feel anything at all for Dylan. Max Theiriot is trying way too hard when it comes to Dylan's "don't give a shit" rebel attitude. Not helping the matter is that Dylan is nothing but a dickbag who only cares about money, but then the writers want us to feel bad for him simply because "he has nowhere else to go." His adventures into the criminal underworld of White Pine Bay are something I'm dreading, since it will require me to give a shit about a guy who... doesn't give a shit. When he pretty much blackmails Norma into letting him stay, it's fairly obvious that the show is trying to craft a more intimate foil for Norma, and that just doesn't work. Maybe it would if the foil was interesting.

However, Dylan does provide Norman with one of his best scenes yet. When Norman find out that Dylan has Norma listed in his phone as "The Whore", Norman attacks his older stepbrother and gets promptly shut down. Then comes the real gem of the scene: Norman spots a meat tenderizer near the sink. Any other show would just leave it at that, implying the murderous urge and setting it up for later. Not Bates Motel! Norman immediately grabs the hammer and lunges at Dylan again! He doesn't connect and ends up down on the floor, venomously stating, "She's not a whore." It's in these darker, more vicious moments that Freddie Highmore is selling me on his version of Norman Bates.

What I'm not buying into is the sweet Norman and his high school hijinks. Now that he's been partnered Hardy Boys-style with classmate Emma (whose cystic fibrosis will certainly be used for a ticking clock scenario once she gets abducted by Injection Man), I'm officially checked out of that storyline. It feels like it belongs on a whole other show, and to help complicate matters even more is when the mystery they are investigating gets interrupted by another town secret: someone's making money off of a seriously huge marijuana farm. Geez, Bates Motel. Should I be expecting aliens and the Devil to pop up eventually? You need to tighten the stories you've got before piling up more and more eventual mysteries. Could Carlton Cuse's Lost influence already be at play?

There's a couple little tidbits to like as well. Norman's first interaction with taxidermy is a plus, and since Emma's dad is the local animal corpse stuffer, expect Norman to take up some kind of apprenticeship with him, leading into more knowledge about the town and its dirty dealings. Vera Farmiga proves she's still the show's main draw, playing the doe-eyed deputy like a harp from hell. I could watch a whole episode of just her being salaciously conniving.

If the show remains as all over the place as this episode, fatigue could set in pretty quick. A little bit of focus goes a long way, and if this upcoming episode seems to be as Norman-centric as its title would imply, maybe things will get a bit tighter. The wackiness is keeping me intrigued, it just needs to be channeled more efficiently. Also, don't be afraid to let Freddie Highmore let loose. There's gold to be mined in those moments.

TV REVIEW: BATES MOTEL - SEASON 1 EPISODE 1 - "First You Dream, Then You Die"

You would think that going into a TV series about a young Norman Bates would mean that he would be the character you'd be most interested in. However, Bates Motel manages to both surprise and disappoint in the same breath by making his mother, Norma, the real star of the show. And when you think about it, that may actually be a much smarter move. Norma Bates is one of cinema's greatest unseen forces, only ever existing through her son's severely damaged psyche and his portrayal of her personality. This is the first real chance (not counting the coma-inducing TV movie Psycho IV: The Beginning) to get a look at the monster that turned a sweet boy into a...psycho. Ugh.

And Vera Farmiga is more than up to the task. The first half of the episode makes her out to be a manipulative and devilish matriarch (the sly and knowing smile she cracks coming out of the shower during the opening scene made me immediately love her as a villain), going so far as to become jealous of her son spending time after school. I really hope the show has the guts to go to some truly demented places with Norma Bates, because if this pilot episode is any indication, she may be the sole reason to watch the show.

I was extremely excited when I learned Freddie Highmore would be stepping into the role made famous by Anthony Perkins over half a century ago. He had the right physicality, and his sweet demeanor seemed like a perfect fit for the quiet man-child who eventually gets really into cross-dressing and stabbing naked ladies. Sadly, Highmore may be underplaying things a bit too much, especially when standing next to the serpentine Farmiga. This doesn't seem like a show that's going to be reaching for subtlety, so while I respect Highmore's devotion to the mannerisms and attitude Perkins cultivated, he's going to have to bring more of himself to the role if he wants to stay interesting. The few seconds we see Norman enraged (again, the opening may have the best tiny moment where he starts kicking the bathroom door. Just a small indicator of how intense Norman can get) are easily the best parts of Highmore's performance.

My biggest complaint is the reboot aspect of the show. While the Bates family and their immediate surroundings seem perfectly ripped from an America of yesteryear, the show takes place in a timeless present day. Norman has an iPhone and goes to an almost cheesy version of a "high school party." Oooooooo, blacklights! I think the show's creators missed a great opportunity to go fully period with this, and they almost seem to know it. They want to have all the visual trappings of a 40's and 50's aesthetic, but also want to have dopey high school drama to reel in the younger demographic. It does make them less beholden to any sort of continuity, but it also creates this disconnect between Norman's homelife and the outside world. Maybe that's what the creators were going for, but if so, it doesn't work.

There's also a lot of really, really bad dialogue in this first episode. The actors do what they can with it, but most of the lines sound so clunky and forced that it took me completely out of the moment. I hope they have a few writers on board who are proficient just in dialogue, because the show will becoming grating very quickly if I can't even listen to what the characters are saying.

Speaking of characters, it's also a shame that absolutely no one in this episode besides the two leads is remotely interesting. None of Norman's eventual schoolmates (random oxygen-machine girl at the end wins the, "Ha! Okay, then..." award of the show) are anything but two-dimensional, and the one possible foil we're introduced to (the original owner of the motel and house the Bates have bought from the bank) is dispatched almost immediately.

And let's talk about that dispatching for just a moment. If you're this far in, you should be smart enough to realize that there will be spoliers. Consider yourself warned.

The rape of Norma Bates made me hang my head with disappointment. The only reason it even exists is to try and engender the audience with some sort of sympathy towards Norma, who up to this point has been nothing but a controlling and suspiciously malevolent character. We know she had something to do with her husband's death (see: sly and knowing smile) and there have been enough undertones presented to key us in on her likely incestuous feelings toward her son. Up until her rape, there is absolutely no reason to like Norma Bates as a human being. But, she was being enjoyable as a villain. Having to manufacture this kind of base sentiment is lazy writing, and comes off as an attempt to have a "shocker" moment in the pilot. It doesn't help that her rapist is stereotyped as an oily, hairy man-pig, going so far as to tell Norma, "You liked it," right after he's been incapacitated. Her murder of him (while nicely staged and appropriately gooey) doesn't make me sympathize with her. It just makes me wary of what other bad tricks the writers have in store to make us feel something nice towards Norma. I don't want to feel nice about her! I want her to be exactly what she was before the rape: Lady MacBeth in yellow dish-washing gloves.

The other big part of the show (that I purposefully saved for last, since it's the thing I'm least interested in) seems like it's going to be setting up some other serial killer who is tying up women and injecting them with...something. Norman finds a sketchbook underneath the carpet in one of the motel rooms with drawings of girls tied up and being injected with...something. If this is going to be some over-arching mystery for the whole season, my fast-forward button could be getting worn down over the next few weeks. The only interesting place this could go would be Norman finding out who the killer is and somehow bonding with him, sewing the seeds of more sinister behavior to come. If Norman ends up playing the shining knight, I don't know if I can stick around.

Even though there's a lot of misfiring going on in this pilot, there's still enough to stay with the ship. Vera Farmiga alone is honestly worth the price of admission. If Highmore can reach an equally enjoyable performance, then all the silliness surrounding them will be tolerable. I hope Bates Motel has nowhere to go but up. The premise alone is a great one (a motel allows for a plethora of disposable plotlines and interesting guest stars) and the principal characters can be mined for a lot of really fun, dark drama. The show needs to prove it has some teeth, or things will get stale before we see our first shower drain.