Pilot Review: Crash

Crash (Starz)
Premiered October 17 at 10pm

I'm a huge fan of the Oscar-winning Best Picture that this show is based on. This series, however, is a blatant rip-off, rather than an appropriate remake, of the movie. All the plotlines are virtually copied and then tweaked in a way that makes them less interesting. No one in the cast is really that great, including Dennis Hopper who overdoes it as an insane and possessive record producer. The show uses excessive coarse language to try to seem more self-important, but it's off-putting and annoying. The show is pretty slow, especially in its attempts to cover so much ground and involve a large number of characters. Additionally, the need to have cops and EMTs responding to crashes or situations at every point gets tiring right off the bat. Episode two is worse than the first, and I don't think this show has too much hope. It gets lost in its attempt to copy the movie and cover too much information.

How will it work as a series? The movie was effective because it had a power-punch of devastating occurrences, one after another. Here, they're trying to squeeze too much in and as a result it's not as strong. I don't think this should have been made into a show, since everything seems like it's already come full-circle after only two episodes.
How long will it last? No way to know that, because this is Starz's first original series. My bet is that it won't get a second season because of potential ratings woes and lackluster critical reviews, but I'd also suspect that Starz might be very much invested in making this show successful.

Pilot grade: F