Nancy Drew (Wednesdays at 9:00 on The CW)
Depending upon your age, you likely have one of two reactions to what The CW is doing to intellectual properties on their network.
1. If you are young, they are taking older properties, probably ones your parents (maybe even grandparents) loved as kids or teens, and making them accessible and exciting to you and your peers. This can be said of everything from Riverdale (Archie Comics) to Dynasty to Charmed, depending on the age of your parents.
2. If you are, let's say, at the upper end of the coveted adults 18-49 demographic, you probably think they are taking properties you loved as a kid or teen and destroying them.
Nancy Drew is the latest demographic experiment to "update" (i.e. make it gritty, dark, moody, and sexual) a property that was once popular with past generations for audiences today. Its success will likely depend on how you feel about that trend, in general. For me, Nancy Drew is one of the weaker attempts The CW has made in recent years to modernize mom's faves.
The most obvious comparison to draw between Nancy and a show The CW currently has is Riverdale. It's unsurprising considering it's the most successful show the network has launched that's not a DC property in years, so why not try to match its moodiness, its darkness, and its mystery with a female-led series to appeal to its largely-female audience? In that vein, Nancy Drew feels like a ploy to nab viewers of Pretty Little Liars, listeners of My Favorite Murder, and readers of suspense authors like Ruth Ware and Karen McManus. Crime is having a moment right now, especially mysteries and true crime that feature the stories of independent, strong women and stories told by women. So this reboot of the original girl detective isn't all that far-fetched.
The way it translates to screen, though? It's a little hard to swallow for anyone with memories of Nancy as she was in the 1930s book series, or even the more recent films starring Emma Roberts and, earlier this year, Sophia Lillis. This is a darker Nancy, one who is a high school graduate with an ex-con for a boyfriend, a contentious relationship with her father, and a chip on her shoulder thanks to her mother's untimely death and its subsequent effects on her studies and future plans. To drive the point home that this is an adult Nancy Drew, one of the very first scenes of Noga Landau, Josh Schwartz, and Stephanie Savage's pilot sees Nancy (Kennedy McMann) and Nick, AKA Ned (Tunji Kasim), having sex. Soon after, Nancy and her co-workers, including her high school nemesis George (Leah Lewis, Charmed) are implicated in a murder when the wife of haughty town businessman is found dead outside the diner where Nancy waits tables. Because of Nancy's past when she stuck her nose where it didn't belong, the Horseshoe Bay police chief (Adam Beach) tries to pin it on her, so Nancy has to clear her name and find out what happened.
Oh, and it was maybe a ghost, of course.
It's pretty standard teen crime drama stuff here. The palette is a bruise, all blues and grays (much like, again, Riverdale) and faded light. Our leading lady is suspected of murder, but we know she clearly didn't do it. Her friends are shady, but it's likely because they're keeping secrets that have nothing to do with homicide. Add in the familiar small-town setting and a supernatural angle, and you've got all the trappings of a show that has no voice of its own. If you've seen pretty much any teen mystery soap that's come out in the past decade or so, you've seen everything Nancy Drew has to offer.
There's really nothing unique or exceptional to recommend here. The acting ranges from awkwardly stilted (Maddison Jaizani) to mildly over the top (Scott Wolf, taking up the Luke Perry mantle of former teen soap heartthrob playing a dad on a modern teen soap) to just fine (McMann, uninteresting but not awful in the leading role). The writing, direction, editing, scoring, all of the little pieces work together to create a pilot that's serviceable but never truly gets the viewer invested. Nancy Drew never makes a case for its own existence the way Riverdale did in its first season, when the familiar characters were modernized and made relatable for a new generation. Why is this story being told with this iconic character? What does aging her up and bringing her into 2019 do for the audience (and for Nancy, herself)? Without answers in the pilot, Nancy Drew comes across as a grab at name recognition with nothing to back it up.
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